Project - "A new Cape Cod Style Vanity"

    The task of cutting the cockbead molding is just a lot of fine trimming of the pieces. I have cut each piece about 1/4" longer at the compound sliding miter saw and am using the guillotine trimmer to make the final cuts.

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  The trick is not to get the length right the first trim, but to shave it down slowly so that the piece will fit exactly. Once it is right, I add glue along the length.

  I use 1" brads to tack the strip in place — and then on to the next piece.

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    Here are the first two drawer openings. This process is time consuming, but it is worth doing right.
   I am stopping for the day and will finish in the morning. Then, I can start making the doors and drawer fronts.

    It's a new day and I have spent an hour finishing adding the cockbeading around each of the drawer and door openings.
   I plan to use the new Raised Panel Doors software that I recently installed on my PC. It worked very well on the cabinets for Debbie's kitchen. I start by accurately measuring the openings of each space.

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      I can't show you all of the program here, but this will give you an idea of how I use it. This screen is for single panel doors. There are all sorts of other choices. Before I selected this screen, I inserted a number of options that I want to use, such as: stile and rail width, bit depth, inset or overlay doors, etc. With those set, I only have to insert in the upper right the Opening Width and Opening Height — and press "Calculate" at the bottom of the page.

    It takes a nano-second for it to calculate, and then I press the Print Preview to get a drawing with the individual measurements of the rails, stiles and panels.
   I have done raised panel doors for years and computing the measurements is pretty easy to do if you are careful in your calculations, but I really like this program. It is inexpensive and exact and makes it easy to experiment. For example, I usually make stiles and rails 2 7/16" wide. This measurement makes it easy to compute the needs because it takes into consideration the grooving depth of the CMT set.
   But, this time, I wanted to make as narrow a rail and stile as I could that would still allow a 35mm hinge. I used 2 inches. I input that and instantly all measurements were re-calculated. I like it.

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   Having ripped all the poplar to 2 inches, I use the printouts from Raised Panel Doors to quickly cut the rail and stile pieces.

   I have my door pieces laid out with the rails crosswise and the stiles in the vertical direction. I do not want to cope the wrong ends.
   I start by selecting the cope end cutter and will set it up to cope the ends of the rails.

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  The coping cutter is the one with the bearing in the middle. I install it in the router pressed all the way to the bottom of the collet. I can do that since I have a 1/2" O-ring in the base of the collet.

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