I'm in the middle of doing the same thing to some of our kitchen cabinet
doors. Mine are oak and frame and panel construction which sounds
like your construction. I jigsawed around the panel about 1/2" from the
edge. Once the panel center was out it was easy to remove the remaining
edge strips from the grooves in the rails & stiles. Use a guide and route
off the edge of the groove on the backside of the door. This will leave a
rabbet for the glass to sit in. Mine had tombstone top arches which I didn't
relish the idea of cutting curved glass to fit, so I squared off the backside
routing to take a rectangular piece of glass. The front side still has the tomb-
stone arch. I plan on making the strips to secure the glass out of the panel
centers being the cheap ******* that I am, and I'll only have one thin edge
to try and match the finish on. The project is kind of on hold for the moment
waiting for the wife to decide on the glass pattern/texture.
I can provide more details, & pics, if you need them.
Art

wrote in message
...
Hello,

We're revamping our kitchen cabinet, and having doors with rails and
curved stiles we would like to cut out the center panels and replace
them with glass. I know it's just a matter of cutting the inside of
the door about 1/2" around the center, but I'm at a loss on the best
way of doing this.

I've tried several different Dremel circular cutting blades which
work, but they break after just seconds of use. Short of going
through boxes of blades per door I'd like to find other options or
maybe some suggestions on which blade will work since I'm betting the
Dremel will work given a proper cutting blade is used, which their
website isn't much help in locating. The cabinets are made from a
harder wood, though I don't know what kind.

I also thought about using a chisel, but I'd rather keep the cut as
uniform as possible so the inside of the doors look good without
needing trim or fixing with wood putty.

I appriciate any suggestions on how to get this project moving.
Thanks for your time,

Alex