We cut out the face panel for the head's cabinet and set to work on making a door for it.
A couple of decades ago an ol' shipwright taught me how to build these doors.
They are easy to make, allow good ventilation, and are surprisingly strong.
You can make them any size, I like my frames to be 1.5 inches wide and about 7/8" thick to allow them to be routered down making a rabbet around the edge to inset them into the door frame. This leaves me with a half inch thickness atop the panel face.
Then several coats of finish was applied and after they were nice and dry they were cut to length on a chop saw. This is by far the most tedious and time consuming part of the process. I usually spend a day and make a large number of slats at one time and apply the finish and store them in long strips. That way when ever I get the urge to make a door I have plenty of slats on hand and just have to cut them to length and the door can be assembled very quickly.
For the frame I like to inset the top and bottom rails a half inch into the side rails. this hides the groove for the slats when the door is viewed from the top (or bottom). A screw can be driven into the top and bottom rails from the sides if you like to stiffen it up and covered with a nice wood plug.
The slats are simply popped into place without glue (none is needed) working from one end to the other.
When we decide what the length of the door should be we typically divide it by the width of the slats and then adjust the length slightly so that the last slat fits perfectly without trimming the width.
I forgot to do this on this door so the last slat is a little narrower as a result,...but it will be at the bottom and no one but me will know!.....well .....me, and all of you now.....
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