How To Make Floating Panel Door

Frame and panel doors add class to any project but they don t have to add a lot of assembly time.

How to make floating panel door.

The center panel which floats in the frame is a raised piece of solid wood a flat piece of plywood also works. While it is not the easiest to make door anyone with the right tools and carpentry moderate experience can start doing these at any time. You also can make raised panel doors with a portable tablesaw. Using the straightforward process detailed here you can crank out great looking doors for many applications including furniture cabinets and built ins.

The doors i build this way often are referred to as shaker style. After some 200 years of hard knocks and spotty maintenance in the harsh climate of coastal maine our federal period home s frame and panel doors exhibited a range of problems from gaps and loose joints to outright rot. Frame and panel construction also called rail and stile is a woodworking technique often used in the making of doors wainscoting and other decorative features for cabinets furniture and homes the basic idea is to capture a floating panel within a sturdy frame as opposed to techniques used in making a slab solid wood cabinet door or drawer front the door is constructed of several. The frame is constructed of solid wood 3 4 inch and contains a floating panel made of plywood 1 4 inch.

Repairing them without compromising their integrity required patience and an understanding of their mortise and tenon joinery. But for classic style raised panel door cannot be better. Frames use 3 4 thick stock with 1 4 panels in various materials and veneers a general purpose saw blade will do the job although. The vertical stiles and horizontal rails that make up the frame have square rather than contoured edges.