Doors for Basement Kitchen Cabinets

I set up a couple jigs to do the mortise and tenons for the doors. This one is for the mortising. It holds the work piece, and has stops, so you adjust the length of the mortise. It look me a while to build, and while to setup. It was difficult to get them centred, I used my electronic calipers, to help dial it in. It needs to be centred, because I have a stop to position the piece, so each mortise is done from the opposite side. I used a spiral up cutting bit, and cut about 1/4" per pass.

Here are 3 of the mortises. I left them rounded, and just trimmed the tenons to fit the curve. Might not be the best way, but it was easier. I tried squaring one on a test piece, but my chisel seems slightly over sized, and I ended up splitting it.

This is a simple sled I built for the router table, it runs along the edge. It's supposed to have hold downs, I need to buy those next time I go to Lee Valley. I just clamped the work piece on in the meantime. It took a long time to cut the tenons, would be faster with a table saw jig I think. I only cut 1/4" per pass, so I was constantly readjusting the piece.

Here's on of the finished joints. I used a 1/4" slot cutter on the router table, to cut the slot. I cut the haunch in the tenon, using a small Japanese saw, and did a little trimming with chisels.

Here's what the haunch looks like from the end. It's easier to do this way, because you can cut the slot all the way through, otherwise, you have to do a stopped cut.

Here are the door frames, sitting on the cabinet. Now I need to build the panels. I have to mill some more wood, and glue it up for that. The doors fit tight now, so I'll have to plane them to fit the opening (this was how I was planning to do it). I made the rails and stiles 2 1/8", so I'd have material to trim off.

I don't have a jointer, so I'm going to do a setup on the router table, so I can joint the piece for the panels. I've seen a couple setups on the web, seems to work well for material up to 3/4". Well it's taking me a lot longer to get these cabinets done, since I've gone back to work. I haven't even started on the drawers yet. I've only really been doing one day per week on this, so I guess it's not so slow.