Making Glass Doors

Measure to determine the exterior dimensions of the cabinet doors.

Making glass doors.

Rout sturdy door joinery and glass retainers in one operation. One way to make a frameless glass cabinet door is to install pivot hinges made for glass doors. Make sure to allow space for the hinges and some room between the doors if they are stacked on top of each other. Most production made cabinet doors are assembled with cope and stick joinery.

A sticking bit forms a decorative profile around the inside edges of the frame and a coping bit creates a mirror image profile on the ends of the rails plus a stub tenon to lock the rails and stiles together. See how simple it is to install a friction fit pivot hinge onto a glass door panel. For starters think about the level of privacy your neighborhood affords. Saw the end of each section of trim at a 45 degree angle.

Cut the glass pieces or have them cut for you so they are 1 8 shorter than the rabbeted frame opening in each direction. In total you ll need 8 33 25 in 84 5 cm pieces and 8 16 in 41 cm pieces 4 for each side of the door. Place a sheet of glass in each door. However even with these benefits there are a number of considerations to make before committing to a full glass entry door.

You can make beautiful flush corners with a dado head cutter on your table saw. Glue these beside the stiles and rails. You can make the same joinery in your shop with a router table and a matched set of router bits. How to make the diy glass cabinet doors.

Sand and finish the doors and retainer strips to match the cabinet. Cut enough retainer strip stock to cover the perimeter of all the glass pieces. The other option is european style hinges made for glass doors. In this video i show you a simple quick and affordable way to build yourself a unique door for about 50.

That way all of the pieces will fit together easily with no need to adjust their length. Now that you ve got the technique down for creating half lap joinery try your hand at using half lap joints to create the frame for a glass panel door or mirror. In effect glass doors give you many of the benefits of an open air entrance without these deterrents.