With this being the first door frames I had ever made, I did a fair amount of research and looking at photographs before starting. I decided that this piece will have two narrow glass doors. The intention here is to make the cabinet appear taller and narrower than it really is. Cutting up some pieces of plywood helped me to decide the proportions of the frame. I’m quite glad I did this as it really helped to give me a sense of the piece before cutting up precious real wood.

Using plywood to test various proportions for the door frame.

The top rail of the door frame will feature a slight curve (to match the side panels). I built a template from plywood and then used this to route the curve onto the mahogany. Once I was happy with it, I cut the curve into two (one for each door) by cutting away the centre portion. This “missing piece” will be replaced by the vertical parts of the door frame.

The top door rail ready to be routed against a plywood template I made earlier.

I had intended to hand cut the mortise and tenons for the door frame. Before I realised however, I had already cut the parts to size and didn’t leave any additional wood for the tenons. So I had to resort to my Festool Domino to make the joints. I was a little disappointed by this but the end result should be almost the same.

The frame needed a little planing to ensure it fit snuggly within the carcass. At this stage I’m not too fussed about getting a perfect fit as I haven’t purchased hinges or glued up the carcass yet.

I intentionally made the doors a little wider so that I could plane them down to fit perfectly.

After some initial planing, it was time to stand back and look at how things are evolving so far.

I recently started building a small cabinet to hold a number of recipe books we have. The cabinet will hang on the wall next to the kitchen bench. I started by sketching out some basic designs. However, as is normal for me, I prefer to figure things out as I go along so things started taking shape as I built it.

I began with a large piece of Eastern Mahogany which I had lying around in the workshop waiting for the right project to come along. The face was already quite flat so I started by planing the edge with one of my new HNT Gordon planes.

Once I had a nice square edge to reference from, I cut this piece up to make the sides, top, bottom and shelf. With the sides placed flat on my table, I used my router to cut a few grooves to hold the top/bottom and shelf in place.

Since this piece will have two doors, the middle shelf needs to sit back from the front edge. Therefore I had to make sure the groove didn’t go all the way to the front as that would leave a nice hole next to each door frame.

A little tweaking of the joints and we have a simple carcass of a cabinet.

The carcass as it currently is feels quite “boxy”. Before finishing up for the day, I put a curve on the top of the two sides. To draw the curve I held a pencil at the end of a long piece of string. I pinned the other end of the string down to the bench and then used it as a large compass. After making a template for the curve I used my router and a template bit to cut the sides. The result is quite nice. I was actually quite surprised the impact such a small detail has had on the piece already.