FRAME & PANEL DOORS: A Simple Approach for Making Your Own

Frame and panel doors are a classic part of traditional furniture and cabinet design. Besides looking fabulous, frame and panel construction helps tame the tendency for wood to expand and contract seasonally with changes in airborne humidity. Click below to watch a video tutorial of the simple way I make frame and panel assemblies from solid wood – doors, panels and wainscoting. I’ve never seen anyone work this way, but I find it excellent.

The video is from my online cabinetmaking course for ordinary people. All it takes is a tablesaw, a hand plane and a router table with one simple and inexpensive bit to make doors like these. The results look better than more modern and expensive methods that use fancy router bits and a router table. Hundreds of people have taken my cabinet course and it’s amazing to see what they’ve created – most having never done any cabinetmaking before.