The Golden State: Where & How to Live, Secure, Visit, Enjoy and Thrive in California

The Practical Built In Funiture

Matching Doors to Frames

Some door frames are rabbeted to receive the door when you close it. Therefore the wood of the frame must be thicker than the door. Rabbeted door frames are made in the same manner as the rabbeted frames just described. The door, when closed, fits flush with the outer face of the frame.

But most frames are not rabbeted, and the doors fit snugly inside them. In such cases there must be some method of preventing the door from going too far inside the frame when closed. The front edge of a shelf may serve, or a block inside the bottom lip, or any standard metal catch.

In many cabinets you can use doors that close against the front of the frame. All four edges of these doors are rabbeted, the rabbets concealing the clearance around the opening between door and frame. To make doors of this type you can use either of the methods shown in Figs. 23a or b.

Fig. 23a shows a door made up of two sheets of thin plywood glued and nailed together. The smaller sheet is cut to fit inside the door frame; the larger one goes in front of it and forms a lip on all four sides that covers the joint when the door is closed. In Fig. 23b a thick piece of plywood is used, and all four edges are rabbeted. A special hinge is made for use with these lipped doors.

In Fig. 23c a thick but light door is made from two thin sheets of wood separated by strips between the edges. If the door is large, an extra stiffener should be inserted to keep the panels rigid.

A simple type of closet door you can readily make consists of two sheets of quarter-inch hardboard glued to a 1-inch frame (Fig. 24). Because of the thin sides and large internal spaces you'll need to allow for air expansion by drilling through the frame members as the sketch shows.