Making Raised Panel Doors.

Making Raised Panel Doors. By Joseph Fusco Revised 10/30/2009 If you're thinking about building an entertainment center, armoire, computer desk or kitchen cabinets, the need to know "how" to construct raised panel doors would be very helpful. Victor and I have put together this page in the hopes that it will be a good starting point for a novice woodworker. So, without further delay lets begin.
Every job must start out with a good supply of materials. Whether you plan on purchasing your stock "ready" milled or you will be dimensioning it yourself, it's always wise to purchase the best stock you can afford. I have always dimensioned my own stock so, that's where we will begin. I will be using hard maple for this project. This and cherry seem to be the two most popular woods at the time I wrote this article.
The first thing to do when it's time to start dimensioning your "rough" stock is to cut it into sizes that are close to the "finish" pieces that you will need. The greatest reason for this is that it will produce far more usable pieces for our stock. We start with 4/4 (four quarter) stock, this measures about 1-1/4" in the rough.
Once you have cut your stock to their rough dimensions you will need to begin to "dress" it. This is the process of making your stock flat, straight, square and to it's final thickness. The two "best" machines for these are the Jointer and Planer. This is not to say that hand planes wouldn't do a fine job. . .it would just take a bit longer. The first step in dressing your stock is at the jointer.
This will provide you with a flat surface to work from. The process of working on the jointer is a simple one once you understand how to use this very useful machine. It's also very important that your jointer is well tuned as to provide you with reliable service. After you have made one surface flat, you are ready for the next step. . .the planer.
The planer will soon become one of your favorite shop tools, if you don't happen to own one I would highly recommend that you seriously think about the purchase of one. The "freedom" to mill your stock to any thickness is a great advantage to the average woodworker. It means that you will no longer be held captive to 3/4" or 5/4" stock again. After you have flattened one side with the jointer you can now use the planer to "plane" the opposite side parallel to the flat side to mill the board its desired thickness. I must add that you can do all of this with hand planes, if you ever have the time you should try it. It's a great experience.
Determining Rail & Style Measurements. At this point we might as well go through the whole process of determining the dimensions of any door. I use the term any because it should work for any door you would need. After you have determined the "overall" size of your door you can then cut all it's component parts. In most cases that will be two (2) rails, two (2) styles and one (1) panel. Let's also say that the rail and style widths will be2-1/4" and their thickness will be 13/16". If you were to make a door that is 15" wide by 21" high, it would brake down as follows; The style measurements are equal to the overall length of the door. So for this door they would be; 21" long by 2-1/4" wide by 13/16 thick. The rails have two measurements to understand, the overall and the inside or minimum and they both depend on the cutter you are using. It would be for you to determine what the setback cut is on your particular cutter. The one I'm using has a 3/8" setback. What the setback is, is the amount of wood that the cutter removes when making the "*stick" component of the joint. This is also the length of the tenon that is made. This cut is made on all the "inside" surfaces* of the rails and styles. So, if your overall width is 15", your rails overall lengths would equal; ( 15"- (2-1/4" * 2) + (3/8" * 2) ) or ( 15" - 4-1/2" + 3/4" ) or 11-1/4". Determining Panel Size. After you have successfully milled your stock you are now ready to start the glue phase of your project. You will joint each edge of the glued up panels to get a good tight joint. After your panels have had time to dry it's time to cut them to size. The table saw with a "panel" jig works well for this. To determine the "correct" size of a panel is a function of the size of the door and the type wood used. You could also say that the location of the door would play a part in this, but since most "spaces" are conditioned, that should not be of much concern. A good rule of thumb here would be to leave about 3/16" or 3/32" on each side of the panel for expansion. That being the case the width of the panel would be equal to the rail's overall width less 3/16"" the length of the panel would be equal to the door length, less 2x the rail width, plus the cutter offset (in most case 3/8" so it would be 3/4") less 3/16".

Once the panels are cut to their correct sizes it's time to make the raised panel. You can use several tools to do this job: which include a plane, router table, table saw or shaper. I prefer to use my shaper.

If you don't have a shaper. . . these router table are inexpensive to build. The one on the right costs about $20 bucks to make. The shaper is just the easiest tool for me to use in the shop. This set up with a 3-wing tantung cutter make by Freeborn Tool. Plus the 1hp power feeder makes things a "whole" lot easier.
After you have shaped your raised panels you can know make the rail and styles for your cabinet doors.
The classic joint for a raised panel door is the cope and stick joint. Here you can use a shaper or router table. For any thing over 7/8" thick I use my shaper. Since these doors are 13/16" I use the router table to cut these joints. The setup I like to use is shown below. It is by far the safest, fastest and easiest one that I've ever used.

I clamp a piece of scrap to the table tight enough to allow an MDF "sled" to slide freely, I then clamp the piece to be coped against the sled. This reduces tear out on the pieces by providing a backing while shaping. This also allows me to adjust the depth of cut without ever moving the fence! The first pass takes about 3/16" and the second finishes up the cope.

I believe once you try this method you will never use another again. The system acts like a "square" to always register the pieces perfectly square to the fence and cutter.
The next system I use is to cut the stick joint. I use two router tables when cutting cope and stick joints, one for the cope and one for the stick, this is so I don't have to change set up for each operation. If you only have one router table you will do just fine, you just need to change setup in-between each operation. You could always build an auxiliary table for about $20 bucks like the one below.

I call this the double fence system. The way it works is you locate an auxiliary fence at a point away from the main fence equal to the width of the stock plus 3/16" of an inch. This allows you once again not to have to move the main fence. The first pass is against the auxiliary fence, this will make the first cut only 3/16" into the work piece. The final cut is against the main fence. You will also be surprised at how well this works.
Now that all the milling is completed you should have a stack of material that looks like this. . . The only thing left is to assemble the doors.

You should take time and care in the glue up of the doors. Try not to let too much glue run out of the joints, if it does it just means you'll be spending more time cleaning them then finishing them. These are the simple steps in the glue up process.


The use of good quality clamps will make the operation go a lot smoother. With a little luck you will be producing doors just like the ones below. Don't forget now to read How to make Arched Top Raised Panels have fun and Good luck.