acrylic sliding doors


Rui

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First post here!

I am going to build a shelf along the lines of what you see in the attached picture.

The length is about 180 cm, the height about 35 cm, depth of about 40cm. Most likely I will be using 1.8 cm-thick pine, the type of wood I can easily buy.

The question I have is about the sliding doors you see there. Initially I thought about using plywood for that but, since the doors will be about 90cm long, I assume that this will only work if the plywood is fairly thick, perhaps 1 cm, at least? But that would use a lot of the depth of the shelf. What about acrylic/plexiglass? I can find sheets of this material that are 0.5 cm thick and seem sturdy enough. They would slide along router-made grooves that I am guessing could be around 0.5 cm deep.

Do you think this will work? Thanks!

post-6647-0-20205300-1331226209_thumb.jp

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Thanks for the reply! My concern regarding the thickness of the plywood is that it will bend if it's not thick enough. And if it bends, even if only slightly, the doors won't slide easily...

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Thanks for the reassurance that this will work. I am sort of leaning toward the acrylic idea because it's a more functional solution.

It might be difficult to understand the purpose of this piece from the sketchup picture I have shown you. This will be attached to a wall all the way to the ceiling. That's why one of the top corners has that funny shape: it' to mimic the shape of the crown molding.

Which brings me to my next question: how can I make that cut? I have a router but not a router table. I thought about using a template and an appropriate router template bit, but how can I produce a template if I don't have a band saw? If I am going to make the template using a coping saw, I might as well cut those shapes directly using the coping saw. Any suggestions? A solution that just came to me was making a template out of glass with a glass cutter. Does that make sense?

Thanks for any input, I am very new to this craft :-)

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I have a cabinet with sliding doors like yours. The opening is 6'x3' (180cm x 90cm), so each door is around 3'x3' (90cm x 90cm). The doors are just 1/4" thick (~0.5 cm).

I've never had any problems with bending in the two years I've used them.

You could also do something like this to help make it rigid.

post-5547-0-96330800-1331908486_thumb.jp

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  • 2 weeks later...

I would make a cardboard template out of a thin stiff cardboard. This can easily be cut with scissors or a utility knife. Once you have the cardboard template ready then you can transfer this onto a piece of hardboard or acrylic, or just go right to your piece and cut with a coping saw. Then all you would need to do is file/sand down the piece until it fits tight. If you want to use the router or make several pieces transfer the cardboard onto a piece of hardboard, or thin wood, test the fit of this template to your moulding and then use the router on your piece. You may need to use a sharp chisel, or a saw to clean out tight corners. You will probably need to file, or sand down the finished project to match the profile exactly. One other thing is you may want to have a slight back bevel on your finished piece this way you will have less material to file or sand away.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Fireman: thank you for the detailed description! After some thinking and quite a bit of youtubing, that's exactly what I did. And it worked fairly well... I have (for the time being) given up on the sharp corners.

I would make a cardboard template out of a thin stiff cardboard. This can easily be cut with scissors or a utility knife. Once you have the cardboard template ready then you can transfer this onto a piece of hardboard or acrylic, or just go right to your piece and cut with a coping saw. Then all you would need to do is file/sand down the piece until it fits tight. If you want to use the router or make several pieces transfer the cardboard onto a piece of hardboard, or thin wood, test the fit of this template to your moulding and then use the router on your piece. You may need to use a sharp chisel, or a saw to clean out tight corners. You will probably need to file, or sand down the finished project to match the profile exactly. One other thing is you may want to have a slight back bevel on your finished piece this way you will have less material to file or sand away.

Now I am stuck with the dovetail joints. I have tried to cut the tails twice, but the results are not as pretty as I expected. I am blaming this lack of success on the quality of the wood, which in all fairness sucks... I will probably give up on the dovetails and try some sort of finger/box joint which I can produce using a router.

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