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A Beginning Guide to Making Arched & Straight Top Raised Panel Doors What is an Arched Top Panel Door? The term Arched Top Panel Door simply refers to doors with top panels and rails that have been formed with various template shapes such as Cathedral, "Arched," Roman, etc. 5/8 inch Panels Or 3/4 inch Panels

The first thing you'll need to know prior to doing any cutting is just what size the overall door is to be and how you want it designed. To begin, let's make a door. For this example, here are a few basic considerations:

1. Will the door be an overlay, inset, or made with a door lip
2. Will the door have an arched or straight top.

For the example, we'll go through the steps to make a simple overlay door.

Door Size - to fit an opening 14" wide by 19" tall. First we need to determine the width of the stiles & rails. 
(Determining Stile, Rail, and Raised Panel Sizes for arched top raised panel doors are discussed in that section.)

Choosing materials and making the profile and cope cuts on the stile & rails are fairly simple operations. Before we go further, full set up details for your particular type of stile and rail set can be found on this website: 
Matched Set - OLDHAM's factory matched sets give the strongest, cleanest, precisely fitting joints in all types of wood. The set of choice for making perfect joints by both the professional and amateur woodworker.
Stacked Bit - The perfect one-bit system, no need to reverse, switch, reset your fence, or remove the bit from the router. Simply rout your rails, then raise the bit in your table and rout the stiles.
Reversible Bit - The least expensive way to make stile and rail joints using only one bit. You rout the rail cope cuts, then reverse the cutters on the bit before making the rail and stile profile cuts.

So, here we'll concentrate on materials. Select the best surface of your material and make a mark on that surface, chalk works well for most material since it leaves no indentation and is easily removed without sanding when it's time to finish the doors. Use the best surface for the face of the stiles and rails since this will be what shows when the door is closed.

It is best to do your set up with scrap material of the same thickness as your finished material. Before making the test cuts, check and use the detailed instructions for your particular stile & rail set. First, all the cope cuts at the ends of the rails should be made. Second, change the setup, aligning the profile cutter to the cope cuts per set up instructions. Make test profile cuts on scrap material and check the profile to cope fit. If any adjustment needs to be made, remember that the router needs to be moved only 1/2 of the apparent error to make the correction. A little extra time here is well spent, so get the fit as close as possible. When you are satisfied that the fit is right, be sure the finish face is oriented properly then make the profile cuts on all the stile and rail material. 

After making the stile and rail cuts, dry fit the parts and check for errors. Remember, the first door you make is a very important learning procedure. If the door frame isn't perfect don't be afraid to start over.
Do it right. These procedures will quickly become second nature, so making a couple of scrap doors is a great training exercise.

Raised panels are as easy to make as stiles & rails, determining the dimensions is shown under the section Sizing Materials and Determining Dimensions for Stile and Rail Doors. Determining sizes for arched top raised panel doors are discussed in that section.

So, we've determined the raised panel size to be 10-3/4" x 15-3/4". A panel this size should be glued up from smaller pieces since a single piece of this width would be subject to cupping. A glue joint bit is ideal for gluing up panels to width (See page 15 for detailed instructions on glue joint bits). Sometimes a glued up panel is made slightly oversize in width and length from 3/4" material and then back cut with a 1/8" relief to fit into the insets, at other times the glued up panel is milled to 5/8" finish thickness. This choice more often than not depends upon the tools available in your shop. After gluing up the panel, square and cut it to the finish size. Now you're ready to raise the panel profile.

Cutting the profile on the raised panel does require a certain amount of care. Unless you are making an arched top panel, whether you use a vertical or horizontal raising bit matters little since the concept is the same. Many times the vertical panel raising bit is preferred since it can give a larger reveal than standard horizontal bits. 

Raised panel cuts go to a depth of about 3/8". So, make your raised panel cuts in steps by indexing the fence to make the panel using three cuts of about 1/8" each. This way you'll have a much smoother finish cut to sand and you'll be following safe routing practice at the same time.

Sanding the raised panel cut before final assembly is very important, especially the end grains. Don't look for shortcuts here, use a strong light, clean open paper, and go for perfection. Trying to sand these areas after the door is assembled will result in almost certain damage to the stile and rail profiles.

Pre-finishing the raised panel before assembly of the door can save a lot of grief later, especially when there is a change in panel dimension due to humidity. Without pre-finishing the panel, humidity changes can expose unfinished edges or dark stain which built up in the inset cracks.

Working carefully does not necessarily mean working slowly, but if this is your first door, work carefully, safely, and slowly, mind the details, look closely and come to understand each step of the process. Above all remember this, if it doesn't look or feel safe, it probably isn't safe. Make sure you're comfortable with each procedure before starting the work.