Building Interior Panel Doors for Your Bus
Jack Conrad

Panel doors consist of a frame with one or more panels inset into the frame. Standard six panel interior doors in your house and raised panel cabinet doors are a couple of examples of panel doors. Panels can also be used on walls and ceilings. The ceiling in the front of our bus consist of oak frames with gold mirror panels. Vertical members are called stiles, horizontal members are called rails, and members that separate panels are called mullions.

You also have a choice of panel insert materials. The router bit cuts a ¼” wide slot for the panel to fit in. I have used ¼” oak plywood, ¼” dark tinted Lexan, ¼” mirror Lexan and raised oak panels.

Building interior panel doors/panels for your bus can be done with only a few power tools. Minimum list would include router, router table, router bits, circular saw, and clamps. A small table saw would make the job much easier.
Router should be at least 2 hp. A router table is also necessary to hold router in proper alignment when routing the edges of the boards. Although cuts can be made with a circular saw, straight cuts are easier to make with a table saw.

Hardwoods such as oak, maple, and poplar are usually easier to work with than softwoods such as pine, spruce, and fir. The softwoods have a tendency to splinter and leave ragged edges more than the hardwoods. I used red oak to make our frames. Raised panels do require an additional router bit.

The router bits come in a set. Most sets are available in ½” or ¼” arbor. The ½” arbor is preferred if your router will accommodate this size. The larger arbor helps prevent the bit from vibrating and insures better alignment of the bit and wood. The most inexpensive sets include one shaft with removable sections that are removed and rearranged to make the mating cut. The set I purchased has 2 separate bits for the 2 mating cuts. (figure 1) This simplifies changing from one cut to the other. Raised panels do require an additional bit.

Start by deciding how wide you want your framing members to be. Usually the larger the door, the wider the frame. I made our closet door frames 3 ½” wide. These doors are approx. 2’x6’. I made our cabinet door frames 1 ¾” wide. Rip the framing lumber to the width you want. To make it easier to handle the boards, after ripping, I cut to length plus a couple of inches. This will be trimmed to exact length later.

After all stock is cut to the correct width, install the edge cutter in the router and install the router in the router table. Adjust the height of the router. This is sometimes a trial and error exercise using scrap lumber until it is set at the correct height. Once set, run a piece of wood and save to use in the future as a setup guide. You will to do the same thing with the end cut bit. (figure 2)
After cutting all the pieces, run the edges across the router table to cut the edge groove in the boards. On rails and stiles only rout the inside edge. On mullions, do both edges. Now you are ready to cut to size and mill the ends.
You will notice that after the ends are milled , they overlap slightly. The simplest way to get the correct measure is to lay the stiles on a workbench with the outside to outside measurement correct. Then measure from inside groove to inside groove. This will be your overall measurement for the rails.
After cutting the rails to exact length, the ends must be milled to match the stiles.

This is done using the other bit. Use scrap stock until you have router height set correctly. This can be checked by fitting your scrap piece onto the finished stile. (figure 3) When cutting the ends, back up the stock with a wide piece of scrap wood. (figure 4)This does serves 2 purposes. It keeps the end square as it passes the router bit and helps prevent splintering.

After all pieces are cut and routed it is time to assemble the door. Cut the panel 1/8” less than the groove to groove dimension to allow for expansion and contraction of the wood with temperature and humidity changes. Apply carpenter’s glue to framing members only, panel should “float” in the slot. Apply clamps and set aside to dry. (figure 5).