Greetings:
I am fairly new to woodworking. Having built a few kitchen cabinets successfully, I want to move on to a larger built-in wardrobe. For reference, it’s 48 3/4″ deep with a dividing wall halfway back making 2 bays, back to back with 2 doors on the front of each bay. One side will be against a wall, the other will be exposed.
I have a few questions and I would like any advice I can get.
1. The doors on this project are large (30 x 88, roughly). The plans call for flat panel doors with panel molding. Does this mean that the door is 1-piece with molding, or are all doors built as rails and stiles?
2. If the doors are each 1 panel, I assume that I would use mahogany plywood, edge banded. Is this the proper conclusion?
3. The exposed side of the piece is 48 3/4″ wide. I can get the 3/4″ above a 4×8 sheet from the face frame, but I’m concerned I will still be relying too much on the squareness of a 4×8 mahogany plywood panel with no room to square it up. Is there some trick to this?
So, do these questions make you think I’m off my rocker, or am I asking the right questions? Also, are there options I should be considering, like are there wider than 4′ mahogany plywood sheets available?
Thanks, in advance for your thoughts,
Drew
Edited 1/25/2005 3:58 pm ET by DrewK
Edited 1/25/2005 3:58 pm ET by DrewK
Replies
1. The doors are flat panels, prolly 1/4", sitting in the stile and rail frame. Then add a the decorative molding where panel meets frame.
2. No.Solid mahogany frame and ply panel. Expensive stuff to screw up if you are a beginner.
3. Measure the diagonal for square.It should not be off by much, if any.
DrewK ,
Will the doors be hinged or will they be bi pass sliders ?
Panel molding may be applied molding , hard to say.
edge banding works fine
you can splice a section of more of the same plywood to create any size you want, or make the end frame and panel .
If you will use bi pass doors then you may want to make the box deeper to accommodate the door track and such and still leave room to hang clothes.
good luck dusty
Dusty:
The doors are hinged.
As for splicing the plywood panels, I could do that, I just hate to for 3/4" of extra width. I guess I'd run the seam down the middle, so as to make it look planned. It does introduce a jointing issue that didn't exist.
Drew
Drew ,
That IMO is a huge door to hinge especially made out of 3/4" material. Your best bet is to make them frame and panel or better yet consider using bought hollow core man doors. Or what I suggested prior use bi- pass sliding doors out of 3/4" materials ..
you could be asking for trouble trying to hinge a 30"x88" cabinet type door
just my take on it , good luck dusty
Edited 1/27/2005 12:34 pm ET by pete
This thing sounds HUGE and I think that the doors are going to give you a major headache. Do they really need to be 88" tall???
Pete & Dave:
Thanks for your thoughts. Rant on... I have so much to learn, I'm happy to take input in any format.
I'm 'wit 'cha on the 3/4" of depth thing. That's no big deal. The question was really about the likelihood getting a straight edge from a 4x8 sheet of mahogany ply without having to trim much of the 48" away.
The piece sounds huge... it is huge. We are converting a spare bedroom into a dressing room. The ceilings in the room are close to 11'. The room will be amazing if I can pull it off and I'm inclined to try, with a lot of helpful advice from forum members. And, yea, according to the plans the designer made up... 88" x 30" doors.
So, let's assume you were going to build this beast as planned (there are actually 2 of them, plus some similarly large pieces that a bit simpler, but all hinge on (pun sort-of intended) being able to build this))
Having said that, I should also clarify that a large portion of the door is "cut out" where the upper panel of a cope & stick door would be (4'6" x 1'8") and replaced with a mesh screen, so a lot of the door weight goes away.
What's left is the challenge of creating a door that is basically a slab with applied molding that frames where panels would otherwise go. The top panel area is missing to accommodate the mesh, but the bottom "panel" area is still there. To make the door cope & stick would mean a recessed edge and a panel and what I'm looking for is no panel and raised molding. So, I was thinking Mahogany ply with veneered edges, but the reaction I'm getting suggests that maybe there are better ways.
Then, the question is what to use to get a mahogany finish. I'm thinking mah ply sides, a mahogany face frame and whatever these doors turn out to be.
Am I describing it well enough?
If you had a client that wanted this done, and if you liked the client well enough not to tell him to go elsewhere where they do this crazy stuff, how would you go about it? What problems would you expect, and how would you overcome 'em?
I guess I'm asking a lot, but you folks are smart and experienced and, I hope, willing to share some of that smarts with me.
Thanks again for any and all input.
Drew
Well, you started out talking about a "wardrobe" and now it's a dressing room. In my (alleged) mind, these are way different. Another problem I have is that you're working with a designer. I never use one........they all draw pretty pictures but most of them haven't a clue about how to actually make something. I do all my own design work - often using a picture from the customer as a guide to the "style" they want and usually come up with something that's buildable, maintainable, and looks like what they want.
Unless the customer is totally thrilled with the designers plan, I think I would use it for an idea of what the customer wants but work out my own plan for building it. As far as your doors, I think I would try a hollow core door (keeps the weight down) and see if I could buy blanks (no hinge motrises or lockset holes). If I couldn't find a usable blank, I would make and hang my own.
Dave:
THe "Wardrobes" will go in the "Dressing Room".
Drew
Do you really need doors, then? I've done a couple of walk-in closets with hanging spaces, sock/underwear drawers, and shelving. Except for the drawers, nothing was closed in. It seems to me that doors would just be a nusiance in that situation.
OK, so you're determined, and you do have all the room you need. So, perhaps your face frame could be constructed with 2xwhatever, at least at those outer corners that meet your 48" ply, rabbetting the corner of the 2x to mate flush with the ply at each corner, adjusting the overall width after trimming your ply to a clean edge should be a snap, (by adjusting the rabbet(s) to suit (in the direction of the width of that end wall). A dado could be used, if the resulting 'framed' look is not going to bother you, say 3/16 to 1/4" inset and the dado need only be deep enough that your ply edge is hidden, thus requiring less careful (if any) dressing of your plywood edge. You do need a substantially framed corner anyway to hang your door on, unless you use a pivot pin in the top & bottom edges of your doors. More on that, later, if you're interested. Gotta go!
If the doors are only 3/4" thick but as big as you say, even with a mesh panel, that's still a lot of weight, and of even more concern would be warp.
I'd use a piano hinge the whole length of the door, or at least 4 euro-hinges, not pivot pins.
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