I had a request for a custom cabinet, but it had a twist (maybe a roll), that the doors would mimic rolling barn doors.
The cabinet had very specific dimensions to fit in the kitchen space. It started with a sketch and some dimensions/layout of the basic cabinet.
The Plan
The dimensions of the doors had to be refined once I got the face frame put together. One of the design specifics was that I wanted the center rail of the barn door to line up with the center rail of the face frame. One consistent line across the cabinet and doors lengthens the piece a bit. Here is the finished piece showing the door and cabinet alignment.
YouTube Build Video
Rough Cuts, Stock Milling, and Cabinet Cuts
I started by rough cutting all the ash boards to rough length at the miter saw and then straightened one edge on the jointer. Then, I cut the pieces to rough width on the band saw. Afterwards, I jointed a face and an edge followed by sending the piece through the planer.
After milling the lumber I cut down all the plywood pieces for the cabinet. Then, I cut dadoes and rabbets in the cabinet pieces for all the joints. The bottom and top pieces have dadoes as well as the center dividers for the fixed shelf. The sides have large rabbets to house the top and bottom. It took a lot of head scratching to get the dado visually centered. After getting the joints cut, I performed a dry fit to get a measurement for the back.
Face Frame
I did not glue the cabinet up yet, since I was waiting on finish to arrive. So, I clamped the cabinet together for a dry fit again. Then, I ripped all the face frame stock down to 1.5″ wide and starting laying out the individual pieces on top of the cabinet. I left about 1/16″ long on the sides for any potential goofs and out of squareness. I will flush trim it later. One detail that may be hard to notice is that the face frame extends down past the cabinet and sits in a rabbet in the base. After layout, I drilled 2 pocket screws per joint and put the face frame together.
Doors
The doors are constructed with loose tenon joinery and the individual panels sit in grooves. The process started by resawing a piece of ash for the two doors. Then I planed them to the same thickness and edge jointed the boards. After that it was time to clamp them up.
Once the panel came out of the clamps, I cleaned up the glue squeeze and sanded everything flush. After I got all the dimensions figured out for the doors, I started cutting all the pieces to size except the diagonal ones. Then, I clamped up the doors and centered the middle rail. Then, I started to size up the diagonal pieces and get a nice tight fit. Both diagonal pieces will be the same size to keep everything symmetric. I laid out the mortise locations with a dry fit.
Once i completed the layout I got out the 1/4″ bit and my router to cut a bunch of mortises with my mortising jig. After the mortises were cut, I performed a dry fit with the tenons. Then, I laid the doors on top of the resawn panels and traced the outline of each individual panel. After that, I offset each line by 1/4″ to account for it sitting inside of the grooves. Then, I marked each triangle’s position and cut each of the triangles out. The last step in the door construction was to cut the grooves for the panel.
Base Construction
The base was made from 8/4 ash. In order to save time, I created the base before the cabinet was glued up (no finish yet). The base mas mitered on the corners and splines were added to reinforce them. I cut the spline dadoes with the table saw and a dado stack angled at 45 degrees. The spline stock is 1/2 plywood.
Before I could glue up the base, I cut the reliefs to form four independent legs with the track saw and table saw. Once I sanded the pieces I glued up the base.
Pre-Finishing
The finish finally arrived (General Finishes Brown Mahogany Gel Stain). After sanding the interior cabinet parts, door panels, door rails/stiles, and base, I applied some gel stain to them and wiped off the excess. I should have also mentioned that I masked off the cabinet parts that were going to be glued into each other. After a few days allowing the stain to dry I rolled on some poly to the door panels and cabinet interior surfaces.
Glue Ups
After the poly dried on the cabinet pieces I peeled off the masking tape and dry fit the cabinet one more time. I found that I screwed up my masking on one of pieces…damn.
The door was the next glue up and it was a bit of a challenge. I had to pin one corner down so it didn’t slide around. I glued the tenons in each rail and diagonal piece. Then, I glued each mortise into location and clamped up the door. The diagonals were pretty hard to get pressure on, but I did my best.
The last part to glue up was the face frame onto the cabinet. It took almost all of my clamps, but I got it done.
Finishing It Up
The back was screwed into place and I made the top at some some point. More sanding and more applying gel stain. After it dried over a day or two, I sprayed polyurethane and move onto assembly.
After all the poly dried, I attached the hardware to the doors. After triple checking I attached the rail for the barn doors. The sliding barn door hardware are from Rockler.
