Cherry Sliding Door

Jason Beam

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Location
Sacramento, CA
Hopefully a rather short project since I'm really itching to start on my next guitar. We remodeled our back room in the house and really need to close off the kitchen from it once in a while. This project is a pocket door made of cherry that will kind of be an exercise in frugality to some extent. Using up some wood I already have lying around. Hopefully we're only looking at 3 or 4 parts to this one then I can get back on the guitar. Thanks for watching!

 
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Slight change of plans - instead of a pocket door, we've decided a sliding door instead. This is good because the opening can stay a comfortable height. The pocket door hardware just wanted too much room and would mean the door would have to be shorter than i'd like. This doesn't really change anything about the door construction, thankfully. So in today's video, I flush the hardboard and then get some cherry together for veneering the rails and stiles. I also go into a bit more depth on my resawing system which works a treat. Thanks for watching!




 
In this episode, I get all the rails and stiles completely wrapped in cherry finally. Some thicker cherry where the edge profiles will be cut, and some thin veneer along the outer edges. I show my strange method for veneering long pieces alone again, and at the end things get a little tense with the final pressing - hope it all came out alright!!




Thanks for watching! :)




 
First, I see how last week's vacuum clamping fared. Then handle it's outcome and finally get the veneer flush trimmed. After that, we start to focus on the panels. I've got some incredible cherry veneer that I decided to use. Not being a huge fan of sapwood, I decided to trim each piece to eliminate as much as is practical. After that, jointing the edges and stitching them together. Lastly, they get their glue and go into the bag... I love that vacuum press!

Thanks for watching!


 
This week is a big one - first, we see how well the panel veneer glue up went. Then we get those panels trimmed to size. After that, the choice in process becomes a small point of debate with myself. Once i settled on a process, though, it was a simple matter of laying out for the joinery and getting it cut. All in all, this project is moving along nicely!







 
Another big week - the tenons get cut on all the rails as well a the panel groove. I also cut the decorative profile on all the rails. Some creative problem solving is employed for cutting the groove in the top rail. After that, we get our first dry fit. This thing is gonna be heavy!!

Thanks for watching!

 
This week pretty much the last of the woodworking is taken care of. I get the stile trim profiled and cut out. Then I work on getting the ends coped for the top arched panel molding. I finally decide to take a shot at mitering the rail ends of the trim and setup for that. This worked out pretty well, even.

Thanks for watching!


 
With the woodworking basically done, we turn our attention to the door's side of the sliding mechanism. A few bits of steel are machined to accept a bolt from above. Then I get them fitted into the door itself. After that, the joyful task of final sanding the panels. A little epoxy filler and we're almost ready to glue it up!




Thanks for watching!




 
In this episode, we concentrate on making a jig for mitering the trim pieces after the door is glued up. We have a bit of a failure and i think it's a valuable lesson in gluing... After that, it's actually time to glue this thing together!!

Thanks for watching!

 
This week, we make use of that mitering jig from last week to cut all the moulding to length and then get them glued in. After that, lots of sanding and then we can put a finish on this thing. A handful of coats of shellac takes care of all the woodworking on this project, I think. Next week, we'll work on the sliding mechanism in earnest!

Thanks for watching!

 
With all the woodworking done on the door, it's time to focus on the slide mechanism. I wanted to make sure the load stayed centered well so that gravity could help keep the door aligned vertically. This led me to decide to make a pair of trucks to ride inside of unistrut material. My machining skills aren't awesome, but in the end I think the progress made was good.





Thanks for watching!




 
This week we wrap up the bearing trucks then weld up some brackets to hold the sliding track. With this, we call this project complete and a few installation photos are also shown. This was a fun build and I'm grateful for everyone following along ... what's next??? Oh i bet you can guess!

Thanks for watching!

 
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