I am making frame and panel doors with a 1 1/4" overlay. Do you make the doors to their exact size or make them oversize and then cut them to size? In order to get smooth edges between the rails and stiles.

I'm confused. What does trimming to size have to do with smoothness?

in terms of the rails and stiles being exactly flush when you glue it up vs cutting the door at the table saw after it is glue up. Does that help?

Pretty much always oversize and then machined to actual dimensions after fabrication.

How much do you oversize ? is there a rule of thumb ? I outsource doors and fronts unless they are cnc cut, but some day I may bring this in house.

We build our doors to exact width, but add 1/4" in length. That leaves an 1/8" to trim off each end, which is plenty to square up the top & bottom of the door on our slider.

The case/pipe clamps that most people use leave marks, creases and crush marks that don’t sand off. We oversize then trim.

The majority of our cabinetry is inset faceframe. Those doors need to be fitted to the frames. We do that on the oscillating belt sander.

same as Duster, thats how I was taught,

Duster,

Do you make the rail material an 1/8" wider to compensate for the trimming later?

yes to adding 1/8" top and bottom rail. Then base cabinet doors the rails are always wider to be correct.

Hen Bob - no, we make all the stiles and rails the same width. Even the fussiest of the interior designers and contractors I work with have never noticed the 1/8" difference. Regarding clamping, we use our JLT panel clamps for our doors. The 4" wide jaws don't leave mark, even on soft woods like alder.

the 1/8" is to for squaring the door and nothing to do with making the rail wider.

The rail is made wider as that is how trained guys were taught, at least in Germany and in different places. If I look at two germans trained in the 50's in totally different places I see the same details in both of their furniture.

Decor Specialties doesn't do this, seems like a waste of time?

door makers dont know, they didnt come from the trade they are about money and volume. I had one at a trade show tell me that cope and stick was mortise and tennon. I didtnt even try with him that saying about people who dont know they dont know came to mind.

I make mine 1/16" taller and .020 wider than what I have listed as the perfect size.

Edge sand the remaining off with a 120 grit belt.

I make my stiles and rails 2 3/8" finished. So in the rough they are made 2 7/16"+.01" (2.445" digital). 1/16" get taken off during the profile milling. The .01" is for the sander to take off, removing mill marks and clamp damage if there is any.

The stiles are just milled 1/16" longer.

Regardless, I don't see the point on overlay.

A better case could be made for inset, Jerry Metz used to talk about using blanks to make face frames, not that that would be practical for custom kitchens

makes no difference overlay or inset applies the same.

Old guy had blanks face frames were built around them inset doors on another jig edge sanded came out all final same size when set up, doing 1000 pieces at a time

We make our doors 1/8" oversized. Both height & width. When we run the outside edge, not only does the profile get added, but we remove 1/16" of material from each edge. This cleans up the edge & makes the door finish out at the correct size.

Leo,

2 7/16"+.01" (2.445" digital)

It’s time for you to go metric

Thank you ... no.

I can do metric but can't think metric. If you tell me 43 cm I have to convert to inches to know how long that really is.

And I don't want to learn at my age. My digital displays work fine to show digital inches to 3 decimal places.

And 2.445" = 62.103mm So what's the difference, it's still 3 digits out.

Metric is better, just ask anyone who uses it.....
Why they think a stick with notches spaced differently is superior to another, I'll never know.

We build all of our doors .040"/1.016mm oversized, and edge sand to size. Stiles are cut .040" long, sticking is ran .020" wide

My first cnc was a Beisse and I had to program in their cad software and being european it was metric base. I had no real issues doing all that in metric, conversion was fairly easy. We will never get away from feet and inches, it is the standard here and always will be.

I do my doors per job, inset doors are always oversized by 1/4" so they can be fitted to the opening. I do not know anybody that can build a frame and an inset door and have them fit correctly every time. Full overlay doors are usually 1/8 " long to allow for squaring, face frame (1/2" overlay) are built to size so we don't have to cut them again. We put our doors together on a door table so they are always square unless the pieces are not cut correctly.

I make my frame and panel doors 1/8" oversize all around and cut back.

I make my doors 1/4" wider and longer and trim an 1/8" off width and height
Stile and Rail material is gang ripped at 2 3/4" wide
Comes out of the shaper at 2 5/8" wide
Trimmed on panel saw to finish at 2 1/2" wide and edge sanded