Door designer

mikesand · Post by **mikesand** » Sat, Jun 02 2007, 6:37PM

I am making doors and drawers from solid wood slabs with a dovetailed breadboard top of contrasting wood.

Usually I have to model all the doors in the editor or an outside program, but this job is too complicated for that. Every door/drawer must be modeled separately that way with none of the automation that ecabs gives. I tried making a 5 piece door in the door designer and making the stiles 1/16\". That got rid of the stiles but the rails are still there. and I need the woods to be different.

The joinery doesnt need to be accurate in the model, In fact if there is a way to make a slab door look like the real door that is fine. It would look like a walnut slab with a 2\" figured maple breadboard dovetailed across the top. The dovetail doesnt need to show. The actual wood used will be South American Che Chen for the slab and fiddle back Anigere.

I know that I can cut the slab in the editor and then make a display panel to represent the breadboard, but that would be very time consuming for the number of doors needed. Not to mention that we still haven't decided on the overlay, reveal, and face frame format; I want to be able to make the changes quickly so I can compare the differences.

I also wonder if there is a reasonable way to use a jpeg of the actual lumber to make a species texture for the board stock.

I hope you guys can help. I really don't want to have to make the doors over and over manually. If I change the overlay I want the doors to rebuild automatically.

Thank you for the time,
Mike

mikesand · Post by **mikesand** » Sat, Jun 02 2007, 9:34PM

Hello every one,

I would like to thank yall for looking. I think my first post was confusing so here is a cabinet that is as close as I have come so far. The doors are correct. It is the drawer front that is wrong. I want the grain to be vertical, which I was able to do by rotating the image in Photoshop. But the scale in off and I don't know how to get it right. Also the stripe that shows up in the middle of the drawer is the Anigre accent that I am trying to get on top of the drawer front. I made the image in Photoshop by sticking the Anigre jpeg to the Chechen jpeg. I have tried a couple of image sizes and tried forcing the pattern by making the sheet stock 5\" wide and 96\" long. The result is the same.

Ideally the grain should flow vertically from the door to the drawer. The actual drawer and doors will be cut directly from large panels keeping the grain matched. And the Anigre accent should be 2\" wide across the top of the drawer front.

If I could figure out how to trick Ecabs into tileing the anigre/Chechen horizontally across the drawer front that would be good enough.

Any ideas?

Thanks again for taking the time to look,

Mike

Michael Yeargain · Post by **Michael Yeargain** » Sun, Jun 03 2007, 8:18AM

Mike,

If you rotate the original will this help?

mikesand · Post by **mikesand** » Sun, Jun 03 2007, 9:27AM

Michael,

Thanks for looking at my delima. It looks like you rotated the Chechen grain in the jpeg, and rotated the whole image 90 degrees. My first attempt was done like that, But If the Jpeg image used for the sheet srock image has the grain running verticle it will make the drawer with the grain running horizontal. This is what you would usually want, because drawer fronts are usually made that way. When I use a \"side ways\" jpeg it basically makes the sheet stock with grain running across the width. That gets the grain orientation correct for my purposes, but the Anigre accent shows up in the middle of the board. I dont know how Ecabs uses the jpeg sheet stock image so I can't figure out how to trick it. I have another idea to try, maybe Ill get it today.

Thanks,

Mike

Michael Yeargain · Post by **Michael Yeargain** » Sun, Jun 03 2007, 2:20PM

Mike,

If I understand you correctly, you need the Anigre accent to show at the top or bottom of the drawer. In that you will have a problem as the images are as you suspected \"tiled\" to the parts.

I did manage to get this image to show the accent at the bottom.

mikesand · Post by **mikesand** » Sun, Jun 03 2007, 4:13PM

Great Michael,

Thanks. I have found another posibility. If I choose an MDF door and choose my Chechen sheetstock I get a solid panel with no edge banding like I want. Also there is a grain direction option in the add drawer dialogue of the door editor. However Ecabs seems to tile the image on MDF doors differently because the scale is too small. Or it might be that updating the material image in the define materials area dosent affect the MDF door unless you change the current doors. I will play with it tonight. Can you post the image you used to get the drawer like that. It is very close to the look I want. The Anigre goes on top, and the Chechen grain need to be verticle. But you got the tileing right. I tried making the jpeg 1\" by 1\" like the images in the SR Wood folder, but that came out real messed up.

Well see.

Thanks again for the help.

Mike