On Thu, 14 Jul 2005 10:15:44 -0400, Renata
wrote:

Looking for alternatives to raised panel doors and got to thinking.
If I would use just a plain (but cherry) ply slab could find a design
to overlay or otherwise enhance the simple slab, that might be one way
to go.

I moved my office upstairs this weekend (the old one became a
dedicated lathe room) and was looking at the chessboard I had made
several years ago. The frame around the board is black walnut with
butternut accent inlays. To get the inlays in without a lot of
carving, I had mitered the pieces of the frame, and then cut grooves
in with the tablesaw (two rip cuts each). After getting the grooves
in place, I resawed some thin strips of the butternut to the size of
the grooves in the walnut, then ran a thin bead of glue down each
groove, and tapped the butternut into place with a mallet. After it
dried, I scraped the waste off with a cabinet scraper, and it left an
absolutely seemless inlay that has been in place through all sorts of
temperature and humidity changes.

I know the above was a little long-winded, but the technique might
work nice for making borders on your doors. It's quick and easy to
get a very nice result with. Depending on the look you're going for,
you could just cut the grooves from edge to edge, and overlap them.

Some kind of neat handles is another alternative.

That said, anyone have any ideas or urls to share that would give me
some ideas.

(Yes, I'm going to do my own google search, but ya never know what
additiona gems you guys'll come up with).

Thanx
Renata