Thread: Raised panel door. MDF. Router

The Tesrol stuff that you linked to is not actually raised panel work, they are a carved pattern door. A raised panel door has one or more center panels, surrounded by rails (uprights) and styles (crossmembers). The edges of the panels, rails and styles may be profiled with decorative profiles, sometimes using large diameter bits to acheive wide profile widths.

If you look at the right hand pic from Tesrol, showing a close up of a corner, you will see a sharp internal and external corner. The sharp external corner is a CNC only feature, as to get the sharp corner you need to move the tool in X (along), Y (across) and Z (plunge depth) simultaneously to better than 0.1mm accuracy in all three axis. Simply following a pattern or guide would leave a surface radius equal to the plunge depth at the external corners as that particular profile is cut with a 45degree cone bit. Once you get to the more complex profiles for some of the other styles that they offer, the sharp external corners are more difficult to produce to blend with the straight runs produced by profile bits.

There are two standard finishes commonly used with the carved doors, vacuum wrapped vinyl, and two pack paint. Both are industrial rather than home workshop processes due to the degree of machinery, environmental and operator protection required. You could try a domestic finish, but the durability might be suspect, and the carving would loose definition with a primer and a couple of finish coats. Vinyl wrap has a reputation for having a fairly short life, as it frequently cracks or delaminates within about 5 years.

Hi Malb!

Thanks a lot for your advice!

Originally Posted by malb

The Tesrol stuff that you linked to is not actually raised panel work, they are a carved pattern door. A raised panel door has one or more center panels, surrounded by rails (uprights) and styles (crossmembers).

Sorry about incorrect terminology. I thought this is an example of a single panel vs more traditional 4 panel. I just wanted to refer to the cutting profile, which looked pretty simple and narrow, so relatively small bits can be used.

Originally Posted by malb

If you look at the right hand pic from Tesrol,showing a close up of a corner, you will see a sharp internal and externalcorner. The sharp external corner is a CNC only feature,

Yeah, I realised that it's not doable with a router bit. But a bit rounded external corner is not a big deal for me, I am not trying to match exactly some existing design. Some companies offer those rounded corners as one of their available designs.

But overall, as I can see, similar door can be made with a handheld router. Right? Of course corners will be rounded and number of panels will vary depending on a guide or a pattern.

Originally Posted by malb

There are two standard finishes commonly usedwith the carved doors, vacuum wrapped vinyl, and two pack paint.

As about finish, I thought of giving those doors to professional painters for a 2 pack paint job. Maybe will try my luck with a couple of panel beating shops just 300m from my place, maybe they will be able to paint those doors. If not, then will go to painters shop several K further.

And thanks a lot about vinyl wrap warning! Tesrol, as an example, praises this as their innovative and premium finish. Good to know, that it's nothing premium really.

Cheers.

When we do this style of door for commercial work they are two packed by painters who only do two pack for cabinetry, and a lot of them struggle to get things right. We cut the patterns into 18mm carcass satin board. This is 18mm MDF with a off white coating both sides, similar to the colourboard material often used for doors and panels, but thicker core and a semi translucent coating.

There are two reasons for using this material, the first is that you save on painting because you only paint the face and edges, the coating is adequate for the back surface, saving around $150 -200 sq m in painting costs. The second is that the coating is mirror smooth and level, and provides a perfect base for painting with a very light wide belt sanding. Surface finish after painting is better than that produced on a raw MDF substrate, with less prep work required.

My comments about vinyl wrap are general in nature, rather than a reflection on Tesrol product specifically. We haven't had a customer go Tesrol vinyl wrap doors, although we have done a lot of jobs using other suppliers. The principle problem we have had with our outsourced vinyl faced jobs was with doors scorching or warping in the vicinity of ovens and other heat sources, but the jobs I am are familar with are under 3 years old. Working in a cabinet shop, we were doing a couple of reface jobs a month where other cabinet maker's vinyl doors and panels had self destructed, some only 5 years old. Problems included skins delaminating from substrates due to glue failure, wrap becoming brittle and shrinking causing the film to crack at the corners and edges, and very poor definition of the profile details.


Two pack is also more prone to scratching than most colourboard finishes, particularly around handles etc where fingernails can make repeated contact when opening doors and drawers.

Hi Malb!

Thanks again for a very useful stuff.

Originally Posted by malb

We cut the patterns into 18mm carcass satin board. This is 18mm MDF with a off white coating both sides, similar to the colourboard material often used for doors and panels, but thicker core and a semi translucent coating.

Regarding 18 mm MDF boards. Did you find that 18 mm is strong enough for 2m high sliding doors with a bottom track?
I am worried that it will start warping because of a bottom support, not top hang. I see plenty of suppliers still make those doors in 18mm, only a few of them warn you about warping and offer a stiffening anti-ward rods, and some are not going that thin and use only 25mm MDF.

And I did not expect 2 pack painting to be that pricey .

Cheers.

Sorry, the stuff we were doing was all hinged with euro hinges, rather than sliders. We haven't had problems with warping using carcass satin and hinges, but anything is possible if/when things go wrong. The largest doors we have worked with were 2700 x 600, started flat and stayed flat. I believe that carcass satin is available in 25mm but harder to locate. We were looking to use it for some deep relief doors, but the customer eventually moved away from the design and went to a mild relief design, so i never got to work with it.

Re pricing, typical quoted prices in Melbourne last Feb were in the order of $100 sm for basic monochrome and some of the places quoting that were rough enough to have overspray on the back of the panel, missed edges, inconsistant colours, runs and sags etc. Like many other things there is a degree of overcapacity in the market leading to businesses undercutting prices and quality in order to survive. I had inadvertantly used the price for a multicolour highlighted relief job which the last job I was working on.