Adding the Cabinet Stiles

Time to add the cabinet stiles. These are vertical pieces attached to the cabinet to which the doors will eventually be connected by hinges. The doors will be heavy so I'm attaching each stile to the cabinet with five screws to the side and one each from the top and bottom. To avoid cracking I drilled a pilot hole then another the size I wanted and finally a countersink for the screw head. This for each of the twenty eight screws. The stiles had a slight bit of twist to them so I needed three clamps to force the stile the right way and repositioned them for each screw. I was worth it in the long run.

I used two drop plastics to seal off the small area that I would be sanding in to keep mess to a minimum. Once the screws were in I filled the countersink holes with Zar, a great latex wood fill, then sanded. It took three passes to make the sides perfectly smooth, so nice to feel, and when painted will be one uninterrupted flat surface. I wanted the same smoothness for the cabinet face so I filled the joins there as well. This all took a lot of time but with the radio tuned to NPR it wasn't boring.