Woodnet Forums

Here's a link to Part 1.  OK, now I need to join those nice parts together.  I was not able to find a sash bit even close to the profile of the existing door, but I did find a molding bit from Grizzly that is almost perfect.  The cope and bead radii are almost exactly the same, which allows it to be used as a cope and stick bit to join the mullions and muntins to the frame and to each other, as shown in this sample I made:



More on that later.  First I need to join the stiles to the rails.  The first step in that process was to mold the inner edges of those parts.  Off to the router table:



Then I cut a rabbet for the glass on the opposite side using two passes on the table saw:





To join the stiles and rails I used jack miters.  To make them you make 45° cuts where the stiles and rails meet, then you remove the waste on the stiles, then cut your joinery.  I began by cutting the stiles to rough length and the rails to final length.  Cutting the miters on the ends of the rails was easy on my RAS:



On the stiles, however, I used a different approach.  I made a little 45° saddle to fit over the stiles, clamped it at the miter mark, and used a handsaw to make the cut:



Then I cut away the molded edge on the waste side using the band saw to remove most of it, then a piloted router bit, hand plane blade, and bullnose plane to get the rest.



OK, now I needed to join the stiles and rails together.  I've used my horizontal router mortiser to cut 1/2" mortises on  some 1-3/8" thick passage doors in the past, but I didn't feel that was thick enough for these 1-3/4" doors, nor could I route as deep as I wanted.  Fortunately, my the MiniMax J/P I bought last year came with a horizontal mortiser attachment, so I used that.  Some trials earlier this year proved that center cutting, 3 flute spiral end mills work better in it than the Amana mortiser bit I tried, plus they are cheaper.  Here's the 5/8" end mill I used:





Here's one of the rails being mortised:





And a stile:



I made the mortises 3" wide and as deep as I could go with this bit, 2-3/4".  Here's a close up of a mortise, very smooth:



I made the tenons out of white ash.  These are the largest loose tenons I've ever made. 



Here's the door put together loose:



And a close up of one of the joints:



So far so good.  Next up, the mullions and muntins.  Thanks for following along.

John

Thanks, John.  Very nice work.  Seeing your progress makes me miss my shop all the more.  I am almost to the point of chucking this monotonous Florida sunshine and heading back north to my newly heated workshop--almost.  Ken

Nice, I love those mortises, and the mortiser on your J/P.

Thanks.  Monotonous FL is just that.  Come on back where the weather is more, shall we say, interesting.  Actually, the weather's been great since you left, 72F last week and in the mid 60's this week, but we're in for a cold and wet Friday night or Saturday.  50F and sunny again next Monday though. 

Give in to the call of your shop.  Your tools miss you.  They are threatening to come to my shop if you don't come back soon.  

John

Thanks Fred.  The slot mortiser was sort of a bonus when I bought the J/P.  I didn't really expect to use it much, and I don't for small mortises.  My horizontal router table is much faster and easier to use.  But for these large mortises it is the bomb.  It took awhile to figure out that end mills are the best thing to use in it, but once I got that in hand it cuts very smoothly, as you saw in the photo. 

If I didn't have the slot mortiser I probably would have used a handheld router with an edge guide and a 1/2" bit, or maybe even dowels. That molded edge would have presented a problem for the router, however, unless I cut the mortises before profiling the edge, and that would limit the ultimate depth of cut.

John