How to Install Glass Cabinet Doors (April 11, 2009)

Learn how to replace existing kitchen cabinet doors with see-through glass doors; includes tips, materials, and tools lists.

When Gina Pardo, an author of children's books, heard that Ron was coming to the small San Franciscan suburb of Lafayette, she thought it would be fun to ask for his help. Gina had a project on her wish list that she knew she would never get around to on her own. She had far too many "must do" projects on her list to spend the time on one that was just for fun. Since Ron is all for having fun, he couldn't wait to come help Gina out by showing her how to replace her old solid kitchen cabinet doors with beautifully handcrafted, glass paned doors. She was thrilled with the results. When Ron first arrived, Gina showed him the kitchen while he explained the different ways that they could approach the project. They could take the existing doors down, cut holes in them and then drop glass in the centers, or they could build brand new doorframes and insert the glass into those. Ron thought the second way would actually be a little easier so they agreed to take this approach.     1. Remove existing doors: Ron showed Gina how to used a power drill with a driver bit to remove the hinges and take off the doors. Ron suggested beginning with the bottom hinges first.       They set the old doors aside to use them later as templates for the new doors they were going to make. Instead of being created out of a solid piece of wood though, the new doors would be open frames made from strips of 1 x 3 poplar they purchased at the home improvement center.     2. Cut wood: The first step in building the new doors was to cut the poplar strips to length. The large sliding compound miter saw that Ron used for this project was a little scary but he assured Gina that it was really a very safe saw to use.     A nice feature of this saw was the built in work stop. Ron showed Gina how to slide the stop along the guide to the desired measurement. Using the power miter saw this way insured that all matching pieces would be exactly the same length, which was essential in this case because they were building something that had to be perfectly square.     3. Build cabinet doorframes: After cutting the sixteen pieces of wood necessary to build four doors, they began attaching the pieces together. They would be joining the pieces at the corners with what is called a lap joint. At each end, they would remove half the thickness of the board.     The two pieces would be placed together at right angles.     The ends would then overlap forming a very strong joint. They removed the material from the ends using a router, which has a round cylinder with two cutting bits, one on either side. As the router was moved along the ends of the boards, the material was removed.     They routed the ends of four strips of wood at one time by clamping the boards together on a flat surface. After just a few passes with the router, Gina quickly got the hang of it.     Once they formed the lap joints, they were ready to attach the pieces together. They began by gluing the joints together with yellow wood glue. Putting the glue in a shallow can and applying it with a brush made it neater and assured an even coating. They applied glue to both surfaces and then placed one piece directly on top of the other at a right angle.     Ron wanted to make sure that the door would be perfectly square so he put the framing square inside the angle of the doorframe to check it. Small nails or brads were added to hold the joint together until the glue dried.     4. Routing details: They picked up the router again, this time using a bit with a curve on it called a round over bit. This was used to remove the sharp corner from all of the front edges of the frame leaving a smooth curved surface. The ball bearing on this bit helped to guide it around the inside and outside edge of the frame.     After they rounded over all the edges on the front of the door, Ron turned the frame over to work on the back. Because they were going to insert glass into these doors, they needed to create a little step or notch that they could set the glass into. To do this, they switched to yet another router bit.     This next router bit Ron used was designed to cut rabbets or notches in the edge of a piece of wood. Again, a ball bearing guide kept the bit from cutting too deeply into the edge of the lumber.     Because the rabbet bit was round, it left a small amount of material in the corners, which was easily removed with a hammer and a chisel. The outside of the frame also received a rabbet, which allowed the door to set slightly inside the cabinet opening. Finally the frames were assembled and machined, ready to accept the glass.

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