if you're new to woodworking let me show you an easy way to make a shaker cabinet door just using a table saw and a standard 10 inch blade there are two common methods used today to make a shaker cabinet door the first method utilizes a router table and a pair of router bits that are specifically designed to make doors the other method utilizes a table saw with a stacked dado which is a stack of blades that when added together removes large amounts of material quickly and cleanly leaving a professional look and fit but because you're just getting started you probably don't have a router table or dado set and that's fine because you can still build a great-looking quality door without them it's important to understand and know the difference between the door style and a door rail suits you can correctly measure and assemble the door cabinet rails just like handrails on a porch run horizontally while the styles run vertically when assembled the rails fit in between the styles and this is important to know so that you can cut your styles and rails to the proper length when it comes to the width of the styles and rails the standard size is about two and a quarter inches but depending on your specific overall cabinet or drawer size anywhere between two and two and a half inches is acceptable to get a quick estimate of the amount of material you need for each door measure the height of the cabinet opening and multiply by two then measure the width and multiply that by two measuring this way gives you a little extra material for mistakes and adjustments to get started rip the material down if you need to to your desired width with that done it's time to start cutting the styles and rails to the length the styles are easy as they are cut to the exact door height which in my case is twenty three and a half inches the rails on the other hand are not cut to the exact door width and require a little bit more math to figure them out the total door width needs to be seventeen and a half inches but if you remember if the rails fit in between the styles so you'll have to deduct for those and then add two three-eighths Tenon's to each rail therefore the math looks like this the total door width seventeen and a half inches – two styles and two and a half inches each giving us a total of twelve and a half inches then we're going to add to that 3/4 of an inch for both Tenon's for a total rail length of the and a quarter inches and don't worry if you didn't follow that exactly it'll all make sense once I start putting the door together after cutting the Stiles and rails to the proper length it's time to run a groove in all four pieces raise your saw blade up to 3/8 of an inch and slide the fence over to align the blade in the center of the board and don't worry it doesn't have to be exactly Center just make it close once set up properly run all four pieces through carefully holding each board tight to the fence and tight to the table once all four pieces are done grab a smaller scrap of the same material and run that through as well so this scrap piece so actually be used as a test to get the exact location of the fence so that the groove is in the center and sized exactly to match the thickness of the plywood panel the panel material that we're using on this project is about a quarter inch thick so we'll have to adjust the fence slightly to make our groove wider once the adjustments made make a second pass and this time slip the board in for N and run it through again what this does is centers the groove creating an equal amount of material on either side with that done it's time to check the fit with the plywood it needs to be snug but not too tight as you can see we need to go back to the table saw and make another micro adjustment to the fence so that the groove is slightly bigger they get run one side then flip the board and run it through again this time around it seems to be a perfect fit not too tight and not too loose now that we know that the test piece fits it's time to run all the Stiles and rails through at this point the two styles are done now it's time to start milling the Tenon's on each end of the rails to set up for that milling operation the first thing you need to do is to add a scrap block of wood to the fence about two and a half inches back from the blade this block can be used as a guide to set the proper distance to cut the 3/8 Tenon's and to prevent kick back during the milling process to get started grab your test piece again and set it next to the blade slowly lower the blade down until your just below the side wall of the dado the next step is to make a three-eighths mark down from the end which marks the total length of the tenon with the fence loose place the rail against the block and move the fence and the rail at the same time in or out to line up the blade with the three-eighths mark it's a good idea to keep the blade slightly inbound of the pencil line to start once you're happy with their settings lock the fence down with the solve running slide the Braille over tight to the block and then advance the rail through the blade using the miter gauge now that the first pass is complete flip the rail over and repeat the same process with the Tenon's shoulders now cut nibble away the remaining amount of material creating the face of the Tennant once complete it's time to test the fit with the styles and as expected it's a little too tight and that's fine remember you can always remove more material but you can never put it back on so now that we know that the tenon is too tight its back to the table saw raise the blade ever so slightly and repeat the same milling process as before with a little effort this time the tenon goes in to the groove nicely but another problem arises see the gap here to fix that it's back to the table saw to adjust the fence away from the blade to make this tenon just a bit longer with those adjustments made you can see that the tenon is now bottoming out in the end wall and it's fitting really well now that the test piece works and the adjustments on the saw or dial then run all four ends of the rails to create their Tenon's I do want to make you aware that because we're not using a stacked dado the single saw blade can leave some jagged marks on the joints so if you're standing your doors you may want to clean those up with a chisel of plain or even just some sandpaper wrapped around a block just make sure you clean those up before you dial your saw in because this will affect the way your Tenon's fit the last thing to do before assembling is to get the measurement for the quarter inch panel to do that loosely fit the rails to the Stiles and make marks at each tenant location then measure between the two lines and subtract an eighth of an inch to get the width of the panel subtract an eighth of an inch from the total rail length which includes the tenon at the table saw cut the plywood down to the correct dimensions I do strongly
