How To Make Cabinet Doors With 1 Tool!

If you’re making cabinet doors you can easily spend a bunch of money on tools to get the perfect cabinet door. You could also make a perfect cabinet doors with nothing but a table saw. The table saw is often referred to as the “work horse” of the workshop, and you can build many things with nothing but a table saw. In this article I’m going to explain how to make shaker style cabinet doors with just a table saw.

When making cabinet doors I prefer to use soft maple for the rails and stiles of the shaker doors, and a floating 1/4″ mdf panel. I buy my maple S3S (which is surfaced on 3 sides) so I begin the process by cleaning up that forth side by ripping it off on the table saw. I like to rip the stock down to 5″ because the final width on my rails and stiles will be 2-1/4″. Once the pieces are ripped to width, you could at this point plane the pieces once through on either side, but that would be more than 1 tool for the making process. So I will do some additional sanding at the end to make sure it’s cleaned up and smooth.

Once the pieces are ripped to width we are going to set up the table saw to cut the mortise that will accept the floating panel. I change out the blade on the saw for a dado stack with 1/4″ worth of blades stacked on there. I also set up a feather board to help keep pressure on the board up against the fence. Make sure that blades are centered on the board, with the 3/4″ board you should be have a 1/4″ of material left on either side. I like to cut 1/2″ deep mortises, so the blade will be raise a 1/2″. Run the boards through on both edges of the 5″ stock keeping pressure down and against the fence for nice straight mortises.

After the mortises are complete, we’re going to remove the feather board and add a waste fence (scrap board attached to the existing fence). We will also add some blades to our dado stack to make it 1/2″ thick. The blade also gets lowered down to 1/4″. We’ll also take our miter gauge and add a scrap piece to that so it’ll act as a cheap table saw sled. The waste fence should be pushed up against the blade so that the 1/2″ blade will take out the correct amount of material from the ends of the rails. The tenons will only be done on your rails, which are your pieces that sit horizontal on the door. When setting the table saw blade make sure you creep up to your height because you can always take more off, but you can’t put it back on. You don’t want a super thin tenon.

Once you’ve cut the tenons it’s now time to rip the pieces down to our final width. Again keep pressure down and agains the fence to ensure you’ve got straight lines on your rails and stiles. You can then dry fit your pieces and confirm your measurements for your floating panel. Once you’ve cut your panels to size, sand those panels and the inside edges of your rails and stiles. This helps the finishing process and you’ll be able to reach those tight spots where pieces connect. Once those parts are smooth, grab your glue and some clamps and glue it all together. Then sand, prime, clean, and paint. There are many ways to make cabinet doors, but I’ve found when you only need to make a couple, sometimes it’s easier and more consistent to just knock it out on the tables saw.

Thank you for reading this article, be sure to check out our other build recaps. If you’re interested in a custom piece please feel free to reach out here. Subscribe to the page to be the first one to be notified when a new piece is published. Check us out on our social pages and if you’re interested in some of the tools we use you can use the links below to get the tools from amazon and support us in the process.

https://amzn.to/48CWVOm. -Titebond 3 glue

https://amzn.to/4hDlsqL  – Stanley 25’ Tape

https://amzn.to/3UDVTvJ  – total boat thick set epoxy

https://amzn.to/4egVKWa  – Dewalt drill

https://amzn.to/3UFqg57 – Dewalt table saw

https://amzn.to/3YW2Drv  – Kreg Pocket Hole Jig

https://amzn.to/4hMeTSO – Kreg Cabinet Hinge Jig

https://amzn.to/3YAANzp – Dewalt jig Saw

https://amzn.to/4fzdTzp – Clamps

https://amzn.to/4hxMnUR – 2 Hammers Set (kid size)