How To Build Raised Panel Doors

Traditional raised panels appear in almost every furniture style since roman times though the way to make them varies wildly.

How to build raised panel doors.

The doors i build this way often are referred to as shaker style. Take your time to get the router bits set up correctly test fit everything before gluing and you can produce fine looking doors for any kind of project. Apply glue with a brush to the inside of the stile where the rail meets it and insert the rail tenon. There are lots of different choices and lots of different hardware considerations but one door style that makers come back to time and time again is the frame and panel door and particularly the raised panel door.

The center panel which floats in the frame is a raised piece of solid wood a flat piece of plywood also works. All the methods however fall into two different camps. One method is to use a tool that is specially designed to do the job such as a panel raising plane or a panel raising router cutter. You also can make raised panel doors with a portable tablesaw.

Building raised panel doors is mostly an exercise in setup and patience. Begin assembly of the door. Raised panel doors are an example of frame and panel construction a method developed hundreds of years ago to combat the effects of moisture on solid wood used in cabinetry and furniture making. Cut the door panel insert slightly less than the size you need to allow for wood expansion and contraction.

The vertical stiles and horizontal rails that make up the frame have square rather than contoured edges.