The cabinet will have two, side-by-side doors enclosing three shelves. Generally we make the stiles long with rails connecting to the stiles. On occasion I’ll make the rails long for grain presentation benefit. This build is asymmetrical to the max. Grain orientation was a factor. As was material availability. An added feature/challenge is the center stiles protruding below the case (with shaping to follow).

Rather than panels of wood, I will use glass in the openings. To-date I’ve only made one other case using glass. Time to grow.

To allow it all to come together, the lower outside joint is a sliding dovetail. A later post will show this in more detail. The design also made sequencing of glue up important.

Before all that, I was able to enjoy one of the most fun parts of any project for me: selecting material for each element. One board supplied the short rails. Those were rough cut on the band saw to follow the general grain direction. A longer board was selected to supply the long stiles.

The rail material had a number of cracks which I stabilized with epoxy. Mortises were cut with router. I used a jig and bushing guide for the rails because they were so short. For the long stiles I used the Moxon vise as a wide base for routing mortises.

Despite being careful (I thought) to align my layouts, I later discovered discrepancies which messed up the fit and squareness. I had to one-by-one tweak the joinery. Each adjustment of course created mis-alignments in the other joints. Eventually, the doors came together. More on that later.