Brian Cailsey
8 min readOct 11, 2019

The Easiest Way to Make Shaker Cabinet Doors

The Easiest Way to Make Shaker Cabinet Doors
The Easiest Way to Make Shaker Cabinet Doors

Learn the way to construct cabinet doors the smooth manner! Use your Kreg Jig and those loose plans to make DIY Shaker cupboard doors to replace the look of your home.

Making Cabinet Doors for Your Home

Are you geared up to discover ways to make cabinet doorways the easy way? We’ll use a Kreg Jig to drill pocket holes and use pocket screws to build cabinet doors. Building DIY Shaker cabinet doors is an inexpensive manner to replace the look of your kitchen shelves, lavatory vanities or everywhere you want some new cupboard doorways.

Saws on Skates TV

Watch now as I add some a good deal-needed garage to my small workshop! These space-saving DIY tool storage cabinets are ideal for a small space. They feature sliding Shaker-fashion doorways made with a Kreg Jig. The adjustable shelves make it clean to keep gear of different sizes and styles. The sleek white paint reflects mild and makes my store feel large and bright.

Before we get into the way to make cupboard doors with a Kreg Jig, make certain to click on the subscribe button at the lowest of this web page to join my FREE weekly newsletter loaded with helpful pocket hole tricks, area-saving workshop thoughts, smart DIY guidelines and greater!

What are Shaker Cabinet Doors?

In this tutorial we’re going to discover ways to make cabinet doors which might be regularly called frame-and-panel cabinet doors or Shaker cabinet doors.

Shaker cabinet doors are known for his or her easy design. The stiles (vertical pieces) and rails (horizontal portions) have rectangular edges and the inset panel is flat.

Making Cabinet Doors the Easy Way

Making cupboard doors with a Kreg Jig is straightforward! First, we’ll reduce our stiles and rails to length. Then we’ll drill a few pocket holes within the ends of the rails.

Next, we’ll use a router at the stiles and rails to make a groove for the panel.

Then, we’ll cut the panel, clamp all the portions collectively and fasten with pocket screws.

That’s all there’s to constructing cabinet doorways. You CAN do that!

What Tools Do I Need to Build DIY Shaker Cabinet Doors?

Tape Measure
Miter Saw
Kreg Jig
Router
Router Table
1/4″ Straight Router Bit
Pin Nailer
Table Saw or Circular Saw

Making Cabinet Doors with a Flat Panel

There are more than one ways we can make the panels for our DIY Shaker cupboard doors. The simplest way would be to use plywood. I’m trying to reduce the amount of plywood I use in my tasks, so as a substitute, I made solid wood panels for my cabinet doorways.

My favorite manner to make solid wood panels is to apply my bandsaw to resaw wood into thinner portions. I resawed cheaper 2x4s to make the flat panels for my shelves.

What is resawing? Imagine splitting a chunk of timber lengthwise after which beginning it like a book. Once it’s opened the edges are glued to shape a panel. I used this technique to make e book-matched panels for this DIY Bathroom Vanity.

The panel for our cabinet doors doesn’t ought to be flat or even wooden. We ought to use beadboard, glass or maybe chook wire as a panel.

The Door Panel Floats in a Groove

Our DIY Shaker cabinet doorways will want a groove to put in the door panel. We’ll make the groove with a router, mounted in a router desk.

The Width of the Groove

The width of the groove is pretty clean to figure out. The thickness of the door panel may be simply shy of a 1/four″. So we’ll use a 1/4″ instantly cutting router bit if you want to cut a 1/4″ extensive groove.

The Depth of the Groove

The intensity of the groove requires a little greater thought. The timber panel needs to go with the flow in the groove so it is able to enlarge and settlement with seasonal modifications. The panel might be reduce with a view to interact the groove by a 1/4″ on every facet.

But we’ll truely set the intensity of the router bit to 7/16”. This will permit the panel to interact the groove by way of 1/four″ and there may be three/sixteen” of area final in the groove.

In the space, we’ll install Spacer Balls. Spacer Balls will preserve the panel in region and the squishy consistency of the balls will allow the panel to enlarge and reduce with seasonal changes.

Where Can You Use DIY Shaker Cabinet Doors?

Kitchen Cabinets
Bathroom Vanities
Laundry Room Storage
Workshop Cabinets

How to Paint Cabinet Doors

We should paint our DIY Shaker cupboard doorways with a paintbrush, but I select to spray mine with my HomeRight Super Finish Max paint sprayer. I set up my medium spray shelter, placed the cupboard doors on painter’s tripods and prime/painted the doors. Spraying is a short and easy way to color cupboard doorways. Plus, there are not any brush marks.

Step 1. Cut the Stiles and Rails

Cut 2 pieces of 1×3 to 22” for the stiles. Cut 2 pieces of 1×3 to 13–15/16” for the rails. Drill pocket holes in each end of the rails.

Step 2. Make the Groove for the Panel

Place the stiles and rails (with the pocket holes facing down) on your workbench. Use a pencil to mark the intersection where each rail meets the stile. I also labeled each joint (A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) Labeling will help to properly position the workpieces when routing the grooves and for assembling the doors.

The rails will have grooves cut from end to end. The stiles will have grooves that extend 7/16” past the pencil marks so they’ll match up with the grooves in the rails. (See The Panel Floats in a Groove above for more information about why we need to do this.)

Install a 1/4″ straight cutting bit in the router, and set the depth of the bit to 7/16”. Then adjust the router fence so the bit is centered from side to side on the edge of the workpieces.

Place a speed square against the fence and draw a straight line on the front and back edge of the router bit. These lines will be used when routing the grooves in the stiles.

Place the workpieces with the joint label (A, B, C, D or 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.) towards the fence.

NOTE: Placing the label (letter or number) towards the fence will ensure the faces of the door frame and panel are flush to the front of the door. In other words, if the stiles and rails vary in thickness the front of the door will be flush and any irregularities will be on the back of the door.

Place the stile against the fence and lower the left mark on the workpiece over the left mark on the router table. Rout the groove by pushing the workpiece to the left until the right mark on the workpiece meets the right mark on the router table. Repeat for the other stile.

Rout the groove in the rails from end to end.

Step 3. Cut the Panel

Cut a piece of 1/4″ plywood to 14–7/16” x 17–1/2”.

Step 4. Assemble the Cabinet Doors

This is probably the trickiest part of making the cabinet doors. We have to keep five pieces aligned while we’re trying to clamp everything together. It never fails when I get one piece properly positioned that another piece moves out of position. Take your time. You’ll get it!

First, dry fit (no glue) all of the pieces by placing the stiles, rails, and panel in the clamps to be sure everything fits properly. If everything fits we can begin assembling. Place 2 Spacer Balls in each rail and 3 Spacer Balls in each stile.

Insert the panel into one of the stiles. Do no longer practice glue to the panel. Apply glue to the rails, and place the second stile over the panel and rails. Clamp and check that every one of the joints are properly aligned. Attach the use of 1–1/four″ pocket screws.

Attach one half″ pin nail at the pinnacle rail and one pin nail at the bottom rail. This will prevent the panel from moving. No glue may be used to connect the panel.

Step 5. Finish the Cabinet Doors

Drill any mounting holes for hinges or hardware and sand the door clean. Then stain and pinnacle coat or high and paint.
Final Thoughts

That’s it! Now you recognize the way to construct cupboard doorways the smooth way! You can use these free plans to make DIY Shaker Cabinet doors to update the appearance of your kitchen, toilet or anywhere you need some cabinet doorways.

Thank you for stopping by using. If you found this records helpful, could you please pin it to Pinterest? Other DIYers would appreciate it and I could too! Thank you.

Yield: 1 Cabinet Door

DIY Shaker Cabinet Doors

Use your Kreg Jig to make DIY Shaker cabinet doors. Building your very own cupboard doors is an less expensive way to replace the appearance of your kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities or anywhere you need some new cupboard doors.

Active Time 2 hours

Total Time 2 hours

Difficulty Intermediate

Estimated Cost $17

Materials

(1) 1x3x8
1/4″ Plywood — 2’ x four’ sheet (I made solid wooden panels for my doors)
1–1/four″ Pocket Screws
Spacer Balls
Wood Glue
half″ Pin Nails
Paint or Stain to Finish

Instructions

Cut the stiles and rails
Make the groove for the panel
Cut the panel
Assemble the DIY Shaker cabinet doorways
Sand and end the cupboard doors

Brian Cailsey

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do — https://www.homedesignideasplans.com/