today we're tackling basic cabinetry and
building some shaker style tongue-and-groove doors I'll show you
how I made these tongue and groove doors using nothing but the table saw and a
regular blade the concept of tongue-and-groove doors
is simple all four pieces have a groove and two of them have a tongue on each
end which allows you to snap the tongues into the grooves and form a frame slip
in a center panel and you have a door okay simple enough right but what I want
to know is how do you dial in your settings to get a perfect joint well
that's what I'm about to figure out let's get started
for this project I'm using some leftover maple floorboards I have on hand they
have lines across the back but since this door will be used in my shop I
don't mind at all the floorboards actually already have a tongue and some
grooves so I could almost just use the messes to make a door frame but then I
wouldn't be able to make this video would I so after removing the tongue and
groove I set the stop block on my miter saw to cut the two sides which are also
called Stiles and then did the same to cut the top and
bottom piece which are referred to as rails
so here I have all my four pieces ready but before going any further I bet
you're wondering how to size your parts so let's do a little simple math I want
to make a door that's 25 inches tall so my Stiles will be 25 inches easy as that
I'm using two inch wide boards and I want my door to be 16 inches wide so how
long should my rails be to calculate the length of the rails I'll start with my
total door width and subtract the width of my two styles which are two inches so
that leaves me with 12 inches however I know I'll be cutting grooves that are
three-eighths deep so I'll add three-eighths for each side which leaves
me with a total rail length of 12 and 3/4 so back to my parts there's one
final crucial piece that you'll need and that's a test piece made from the exact
same stock I made two test pieces just in case so after marking those to avoid
any confusion it's time to head over to the table saw and cut the grooves the
first step is to set the height of the blade which will be the depth of the
grooves I cut a scrap piece of wood to exactly
3/8 and use that as a gauge to set the height here you can see the tips of the
blade are higher than my piece of wood so I lower the blade slightly until the
very tips were flush with the top and then lock that height in next I need to
set the fence so that the blade is roughly centered down the middle of my
board I mark the center on one scrap piece and use this as a reference the
center line doesn't have to be perfect the idea is to set the fence so it goes
through the center line but slightly off-center I'm using a feather board to
keep the board's snug up against the fence if you want more details on this
and all the other tools I use you'll find links down in the description below
so using my test piece I ran it through once then flipped it around and ran it
through again you should end up with a single groove down the middle
if not readjust and try again on another test piece so with my test piece being
successful without touching any of my settings I can go ahead and run all of
my four pieces through first on the face and then flipping them over and running
them through again by flipping the boards over this ensures you get a
perfectly centered groove so with that step complete I have a thin
groove in all my four pieces as well as my test piece
next it's time to widen the groove to the perfect size so again starting with
my test piece I move the fence inwards just slightly to widen the groove not
too much the idea is to make the groove just big enough to fit your Center panel
I ran the test piece through once again flipping it over to run it through twice
and then took it over to my center panel material in my case a quarter inch
plywood to do a test fit as you can see the groove was too tight but that was to
be expected so I went back to my table saw and move the fence inwards ever so
slightly and locked it down I ran the same test piece through once again both
back and front I did another test I was getting closer but it was still too
tight remember you could always make the groove bigger but you can't make it
smaller so baby steps are the way to go here so back at the table saw I move the
fence in just a tad and ran my test piece through one more time I did
another test and perfect the idea here is to get a
friction fit meaning it goes in easily without forcing it and without being too
loose so with my settings dialed in perfectly I could now run my four pieces
through both front and back and be confident that I would get the perfectly
sized groove dead center with the grooves done it's time to move on to the
tenon's or the tongues so back to my test piece I'm going to draw a line
flush with the bottom of my groove this will help me set my table saw so that
the tongues are the same depth as the grooves but before doing that I need to
set the height of the blade to set the blade I'm going to use the groove in my
test piece as a gauge now the idea here is to set the blade below the groove you
really want to creep up on this cut without going too far
again make sure to move the blade to ensure the tips are always below the
groove in all positions next I can set my fence so that the
blade is just inside my reference line the idea is to have the blade kiss the
line but without going through the line all right I can now flip my test piece
perpendicular to the fence and use my miter gauge to make a test cut you can see I'm left with a small sliver
of wood here so I'm going to raise my blade ever so slightly and do another
cut okay getting closer but still not there
so I'll nudge the blade up just a little more and try again once I reach the right height where
there's just a paper-thin piece left I can go ahead and cut the tongue again
using my test piece here I just flipped it over and use the opposite side you with the tenon cut I can do a test fit
and I'm really happy with the fit my tongue is the same depth as the groove
with the shoulder bottoming out perfectly and I've got a nice friction
fit neither too loose nor too tight alright so with my test piece perfectly
dialed in I can grab my two rails and cut the tongues without touching any of
the settings to be sure I did a test fit with my final pieces and notice there
was a little tight because I'm not using a flat bottom blade it can leave little
ridges on the tongue so it helps to clean them up by running them back and
forth over the running blade like this after that the fit was absolutely
perfect so I could continue to make the other tongues in both of my rails now
you typically never want to do a cross cut like this with your piece of wood up
against the fence but in this case I'm not actually cutting through the wood so
this type of operation really has a minimal risk for kickback so when all is
said and done I have two styles with a groove and I have two rails also with
the groove as well as a tongue on each end next I need to cut the center panel to
size and in order to figure out how big I need to cut it I assemble the frame
and measured the inside of the frame and now time for a little more math so back
to my example from before the inside of my frame measures 12 inches wide by 21
inches tall so to calculate the height of the panel I'll simply use my
measurement of 21 plus 3/8 to account for the groove in my top rail and the
same for my bottom rail I'll then remove 1/8 just to give me a little wiggle room
that gives me a panel height of 21 and five-eighths the calculation for the
width is essentially the same so with the dimensions figured out I can go
ahead and set my fence and cut the panel I decided to use a quarter inch plywood
for this door but you could also use MDF instead so after doing a dry fit to make sure
everything fit without issue it's time to glue it up
I'm not going to glue the center panel to allow for any potential movement I'm
only going to apply a glue to the tongues spreading the glue all around
and then slip it into place I made sure to wipe off any squeeze out
and then repeated the same for the other side applying glue only to the tongue I applied some more glue and slid on the last piece and used a
rubber mallet to help tap it into place and make a few adjustments until
everything lined up I set the door in some clamps and did a
final check on alignment before tightening the clamps you really only
need to delight Li tighten the clamps without overdoing it and make sure to
apply even pressure to both sides I checked that the door was nice and flat
without any bowing and then measured to check that both diagonals were the same
to make sure that the door was square all good here so I'll let the glue set
in the clamps for a few hours all that's left now is a little sanding and this
doors are wrapped hey I hope you liked this video and if you did please give it
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soon
