Help please - Japanese style wardrobe doors

[Sportique]

Hi everyone, I have agreed :roll: to build a fitted wardrobe - a fairly straightforward design, except SWMBO would like sliding Japanese-style full height doors.

The doors are approximately 2100x900mm each and the inside of each door will be lined with cotton fabric to give a "Japanese" effect. This design will also be within the weight capacity of the sliding door mechanism.

The outer door frame will be 100x50mm softwood.

The questions I have are:

1. I had planned to use the following sizes of hardwood for the doors: bottom rail 100x38mm, top rail and stiles 50 x 38mm, transoms and mullions 25x25mm (set back flush with the inner plane). Will these sizes give reasonable stiffness/durability?

2. I had hoped to do without any scribing material around the frames, if the walls/ceiling allow is it OK to fix the outer frame directly to wall/ceiling or is it best to always build in a scribing fillet?

3. Finally, the inside partitions/shelves will be 18mm mahogany faced ply, how is it best to fit edging to this? I don't have a biscuit jointer.

4. (Added by edit) How should I deal with skirts/coving - either remove, or set the frames into them, or scribe the frames to match??

Thanks for any suggestions.

Dave

Below is a sketchup:

 

[Steve Maskery]

Well I don't know about the rest, but I can help you with the shelves.

The shelves do not need to be 18mm thick. You could use 12mm ply and put a rebated strip along the front edge. This would look the same and have just as robust a front edge.

If you really did want to use 18mm MDF, you could iron on a veneer front edge and trim with a block plane.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Sportique]

Steve

thanks for your reply.The reason I chose 19mm for the shelves is that the partitions will be 19mm and the shelves will be cut from the same sheet. Otherwise you are correct that 12mm is probably OK for the shelves.

I have re-posted this in the General thread, if I'm lucky I may get more response

Dave