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Sizing Materials & Determining Dimensions for Stile & Rail Doors

Sizing Rough Material to Finished Working Dimension of a door15" w by 20" long to fit a 14" x 19" opening with a 1/2" overlay. For this example, the finished working dimension size of both rail and stile material is 3/4" thick by 2-3/8" wide. NOTE: Use 2-3/8" wide material so these directions will work out exactly. Always make up enough extra sized material to use for test cuts. 

Determining Front Side of Rail & Stile Material
Check all material to determine the best face, then, using chalk which will wipe clean without sanding, mark the finish face of each piece.

Determining Stile length
As shown in Illustration 1 below, stiles are cut to the same finished length required for the door.

Determining Rail length using 2-3/8" wide stile material
To determine the rail length required deduct 4" from the total door width to get the length of the rail (15" minus 4" equals 11" rail length).

NOTE: OLDHAM stile & rail bits have 3/8" insets for the door panel as shown in Illustrations 2 & 3 below. These 3/8" insets are also the length of your rail tenons. Both 3/8" tenons must be figured in to lay out rails when using stiles other than 2-3/8", in any case the tenon length totals 3/4". 

Determining Raised Panel Dimensions using 2-3/8" stiles and rails
1. The width of the raised panel is 1/4" smaller than the overall rail length since 1/8" float is allowed on each side of the panel. Take the (11") rail length then deduct 1/4" float to get the (10-3/4") panel width.

2. Find the length of the panel as follows: Take the overall door length(20") and deduct 4-1/4" to get the raised panel length (15-3/4"). The deduction of 4-1/4" allows for 1/8" float on each end.

NOTE: The following is a tip for those of the measure twice, cut once persuasion. If you first finish cutting your stile & rails, then you can assure the correct raised panel dimensions by cutting test strips of the calculated panel width and length and then inserting them into the dry fit stiles and rails. The test strips should be about 1/8" from bottoming out in the grooves.