CASEWORK CASEWORK 3333
the stiles, others have a refl ection of the center stile joints,
and some are made as shown above with the miter going back
to the edge of the rabbet that holds the glass. I didn’t like the
way a full miter would encroach on the tenon, and I thought
the butted shoulders looked too plain.
In an earlier blog post I wrote about making a practice joint,
and I used the strategy I came up with; cutting the miter lines
with a backsaw, using a router and jig to create a fl at area
within the cutout, and fi nally cleaning up the corners with
a chisel. The center door stile became more and more valu-
able as I cut and fi t each joint, there are a lot of hours in that
skinny piece of wood.
This is one of the joints ready to be glued, it looks a lot
simpler when it’s together, but the lap joints keep the pieces
from sliding around and the shoulders behind make it strong
structurally, even though it is end grain butting against long
grain. There really isn’t room in there for anything else. It took
a boatload of clamps to hold it all together, but the glue up
wasn’t that bad and the completed door is pretty strong. As
my boss put it "you’d have to shove somebody’s head right
into it to bust it."
And here is the door after a night in the clamps, as I clean up
the surfaces. I’m working on the cabinet now, but it feels like
coasting even though there are eight through mortises in the
carcase. So far, everyone who has seen this door has had the
same two stage reaction, myself included. Part one is "wow
that must have been a lot of work". Part two is "but it looks
incredibly cool". That makes it all worthwhile.
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