Measure your door opening.
How to build a door with glass panels.
Doors should generally be around 1 8 to 3 16 smaller than the frame.
If your door opening is trimmed include the trim in your measurement.
You can make the same joinery in your shop with a router table and a matched set of router bits a sticking bit forms a decorative profile around the inside edges of the frame and a coping bit creates a mirror image profile on the ends of the rails plus.
You can make beautiful flush corners with a dado head cutter on your table saw.
The glass front doors will keep out the dust plus the glass retains that open look and makes the shelves look like a pretty display case.
If you also need to build or install a frame you will need to take the width of the frame into consideration and because shimming a door frame can add some thickness it is best to wait until after the door frame is installed before building the door or build them.
You can add to the height if you want but don t have to.
Most production made cabinet doors are assembled with cope and stick joinery.
The opening dictated the size and thickness and my desire for a window influenced my design.
Form and function all wrapped up together.
The first step in making a door is taking measurements.
Now you have the size you need your door to be.
The design take a traditional 5 panel door and replaces the top three panels with a single glass panel.
Rout sturdy door joinery and glass retainers in one operation.
The first step in building any door is to determine the size and design.
Now add 2 to the width of your door.
Now that you ve got the technique down for creating half lap joinery try your hand at using half lap joints to create the frame for a glass panel door or mirror.
Frosted glass spray paint for glass panels.