Need suggestions on narrowing kitchen cabinet door

[museumguy]

I've repaired doors before as suggested by jteneyck. I even made a missing rail for a small cabinet door. Take your time and the cuts will never be noticed.

[jteneyck]

That’s an interesting option.  I rather like it.  The mismatched joints will only be visible with the drawer pulled out, so no worries there.  I was thinking about a butt splice just outside of the original, or either straight or wedge tongue and groove (for which I have cutters), but two vertical lines right next to each other would be pretty visible from the front.  

Your method, if I don’t botch it, would keep that single joint line (only) where it is.  Need to study it some more.  

It's the cheap way of creating the look of cope and stick joints, too.  I used it to do the joints on some arched French doors I built a few years ago.  I made the 45 deg cuts with a jig to guide a pull saw.  



Then I cut the sticking off on the bandsaw, leaving just a little bit to clean up with a flush trim bit in the router, and a bullnose plane and/or plane blade.  And if I have to trim the 45 deg cuts to get a perfect fit I use the plane blade guided by the cutoff jig.  You can easily shave a few thousandths at a time, nice and clean.  



It should fit together like this, impossible to tell the difference to a cope/stick joint except from the top/bottom of the door. 

 

It's not hard, and your parts are small enough that they will be easy to handle.  Cut proud, pare to fit.  You'll be fine.  

John

[toolmiser]

There are still some very smart people here.

[MstrCarpenter]

There are still some very smart people here.

Still here? Or still smart?

[stav]

Still here and still smart.

[TDKPE]

There are still some very smart people here.

There sure are.  
  

I feel like a complete noob when I stick my head in this part of the forum.  Finishing, too.  

[jteneyck]

There are still some very smart people here.

If your kind comment was directed at me well, thanks, but I'm just passing on the technique; I sure didn't invent it.  Before cope and stick joinery was ushered in during the machine age I think all joints with a profiled edge were cut this way.  Maybe the hand tool guys can chime in if they used coping planes to cut cope and stick joinery by hand.  I don't know, but I'm sure I wouldn't want to cut many cope joints in the ends of hardwood rails.   
John

[toolmiser]

I had looked at this thread and didn't have anything to add. Smart doesn't necessarily mean inventing the wheel, but knowing how to use it. I hope I remember this for in the future I'm sure someone will accuse me of being a genius if I would pull this off.

[TDKPE]

Smart doesn't necessarily mean inventing the wheel, but knowing how to use it. 

This.^^  

[rwe2156]

At a certain age smart means not repeating the same mistake because you couldn't remember what happened last time you tried it.