Door fitting...

I left off with having completed the mortises for the knife hinges, both in the cabinet doors and in the cabinet itself. The fit is very good with a consistent reveal all around the doors and from the cabinet sides. There are many variables with fitting the doors at the center where a lip and rabbet meet, so I usually just take these measurements after the doors are hung correctly. I had left some extra solid wood along the inside edges of both cabinet doors specifically to be able to shape them into a rabbet and lip. The lip will be on the right hand door as is fairly standard and the rabbet on the left hand door. The lip and rabbet combination work really well at keeping the gap between the doors closed as well as providing a stop for the right hand door.

In the upper photo I am creating a rabbet on the left hand door. I use a skew rabbet plane for this and it works very well in this application. There is a fence on this type of block plane which allows me to set the depth of the rabbet. I began by marking the center at which both doors meet and using that point as the center of the rabbet and lip joint. I typically work one door, mount it and then measure the opposite door. This process is repeated a few times to get everything just right.

The photo at the left shows the completed joint after some final tuning to allow for a small amount of door movement. I can't stress enough to plan before making any cuts, especially when creating knife hinges and fitting doors. Mistakes are all to easy to make and extremely difficult to undo. Not that I've ever made any, ha...

Next I develop a design for the interior compartments and drawers. I have had a design in mind and I'm going to pursue this. Once the compartments are laid out I can begin to plan the drawers. I'll be cutting up some maple for this part in the next day.