Spent 4 hours chasing a 1 degree door reveal issue on a custom set

I was working on a built-in bookcase with doors for a client in Oak Park. The reveal between the doors was supposed to be a clean 3mm, but it kept shifting by about a millimeter on one side. I checked the hinges three times, leveled the cabinet, even swapped out the door. Turns out the miter on the face frame was off by like 0.5 degrees from when I cut it last Thursday. Sanded it down and finally got it right after 4 hours of frustration. Has anyone else had a tiny miscalculation snowball into a whole afternoon of rework?

2 comments

2 Comments

james_ross20d ago

I read a Fine Woodworking article that said even half a degree off multiplies by the door height.

ivan52220d ago

Read something similar in Fine Homebuilding about how door reveals amplify small errors. Yeah a 0.5 degree miter issue turns into a visible gap real quick. Had a closet job where the whole thing was off by like 2mm and I spent an afternoon shimming hinges. It's wild how a couple degrees of slop in a cut makes an hour of fiddle work.