Photo 13- Join the door frame rails and stiles with loose tenons. Cut slots for them on the table saw with a tenoning arrangement. Glue up the frame.

With the top and bottom rails coped, I cut slots for loose tenons in the rails and stiles and glued up the frame (photo 13). I made these cuts on the table saw with a tenoning jig, but you could also do them on the band saw referring to a fence. Keep the cuts below the sticking. Next I cut copes on the five bottom pieces to fit them to the bottom rail, stiles, and each other and glued them in place. When I needed to apply clamping pressure to an edge with sticking, I made cope blocks, put them on the sticking, and put the clamp on the block.

Thus far all the copes have been on straight edges cut at 90o. For the curved internal parts, many copes will be along curves joining at odd angles. To orient these parts, I used the full scale drawing.

Photos 14 and 15- Place the frame over the drawing, suspending it above with spacers. Place curved parts beneath, with cope blocks on both sides. Align curve part relative to frame and previously fitted parts using drawing. Scribe rabbet arc from fitted part onto cope blocks of new part below.

Each curved joint must be done separately. Let’s look at how I did one to see the procedure used for each. First I made cope blocks to fit on either side of the part to be coped. Then, along with the cope blocks, I located that part in place on the full scale drawing. Next I placed the door on top of the part, suspending the door at its corners with blocks (photos 14+15). I located the door directly over its corresponding lines on the drawing. With the parts located this way, the rabbet on the part that is being joined to is now lying in location directly on top of the part about to be coped and fitted to it. I made one final check to see that all parts were aligned and then scribed the line of the rabbet across the top of my part’s cope blocks and the part itself (photos 14 and 15).