the credenza part 7 - tha doors

things are really starting to come together. the credenza is taking shape, and our efforts are starting to visually pay off.

the next step is to make and mount the doors. we do this before hanging the shelves since the hinge of the door may interfere with the shelves at mounting points, so with the doors hung first the shelves will be safely installed minimizing chances for screw ups.

first we need to add a piece of solid mulberry for the doors to be mounted to. attaching the doors to the leg was an option, but proved to not look or function as we desired. notice  the inside of the right leg in this photo below.

and now notice the piece of thin mulberry that will be mounted to the inside of the front leg. the piece is not sitting in its final resting place on this pic.

here the piece is where it will be forever, do you see it?

we drilled some holes, mounted it, and plugged it up. the doors are mounted on this piece so we made sure it was securely fastened to the leg. some glue and three screws did the job for each piece.

a close up of some freshly cut mulberry plugs. that dark spot is a burn mark from the table saw due to an earlier cut, don't worry that'll be screw facing.

plugged, waiting for the glue to dry then i'll chisel off the protruding plug.

we used solid pieces of mulberry and solid pieces of walnut to edge band the ply pieces for our doors. we got a little fancy here, using mulberry for the edges of the doors that would be adjacent to mulberry pieces of the front face frame, and the walnut for the edges of the doors that would be touching each other. we used a piece of walnut ripped (aka cut in half) so that when the doors are closed you can tell that the two pieces used to be one. this technique is called bookmatching, and is very popular in fine furniture.

here are all the mulberry, walnut, and ply pieces that will make up the doors.

the long pieces are wider, giving the doors a strong look. the edge bands along with the ply will also create a very strong and rigid door.

here's a brief preview of how the doors will look. against the credenza.

the solid piece of walnut we used has a bit of sapwood at the top, which will make the fact that we used one piece for the doors very easy to spot.

i used a biscuit cutter to cut 1.5" deep half moon shaped grooves in the ply and the edge bands. then before glue time, put a thin football shaped piece of wood called a biscuit in the slots of the ply and corresponding edge bands.  this helps line up the edge band and the ply so that when you glue them together they are in line with each other. it also gives a stronger bond. i put two biscuits on the short edge bands and three on the long ones, so twenty in total for both doors.

and we glued them up.

when gluing it's important to have a good squeezeout. that is when the glue squeezes out of the surfaces that are being glued together. this way you know for sure that there is glue on the entire surface that is being glued. i hate cleaning the squeezeout. but cleaning it is a very important job, if not done timely the glue will set and ruin your finish. nobody wants glue dots peering out from under a beautiful finish!

all clean! ready to cure overnight.

over night the glue dried, and the next day we took the clamps off. first step is obviously see how the doors will look next to the credenza.

notice that the doors are made from the same waterfall pattern of walnut ply that i used on the side panels. i'm hoping that this will give the credenza a more uniform look from the side angles. i love the figure of the walnut on these sheets.

they look like doors to me. let's hang em!

i drilled a hole in the back of the door for the hinge to mount.

each door gets two hinges. these are fancy hinges with the soft close feature, i do love a soft close.

left door is up.

and now the right door is up!

a bit of adjustment and the doors fit beautifully.

when cutting wood, internal stresses of the wood piece are often relieved. the result is bent or warped wood. getting things to fit perfectly takes a lot of expertise, a lot of luck, and a bit of wiggle room. with my dad and me, we were able to have all three.

link to part 8 - shelving