Hi there, I am currently making a vanity cabinet that has a curved facade. I made the front out 1/4 birch ply, three panels of which I glued together inside a custom form. Not including the minimal amount of springback that occured, the facade came out well. Now I want to put a door on the vanity. Is it ok to just cut the door shape right out of the larger face panel that I have created, then apply some harware and replace the door inside the face panel from which it was cut. Also because it is plywood, do I have to worry if the door is not frame and panel construction, but rather, as explained above, just a single panel, roughly 20×20. Hope this all made sense and look forward to your response. Thanks and Happy Thanksgiving.
Christian
Replies
Christian--
Yes, if I'm understanding you correctly, it's OK to cut the plywood door out of the curved form you've already created. I did exactly that years ago with a half-round bathroom vanity I built, and it worked fine. I used a trim router with a 1/4-in. bit to make the cuts (in several passes), after clamping curved plywood straightedges (top and bottom) and regular straightedges (left and right) around the form as fences for the router.
After cutting out the door, you'll probably want to trim the plywood edges with some 1/8-in. lattice to build up the width lost in the router cuts and cover the plywood "end grain." Also, you might consider using a piano hinge to hang the door. Getting the alignment right is a little fussy; but once you've got it right, the piano hinge holds the door firmly in place and supports it well.
By the way, making your own curved forms can be fun, but it's also somewhat tedious and very time-consuming. Here's a source I used to buy curved plywood from, and they'd ship the order out via UPS: http://www.robertsplywood.com/products.htm
Bill D.
thanks a lot Bill for the informative response, extremely helpful. Have a great holiday'
Christian
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled