Shaker doors from design to CNC
The shaker door looks simple — two stiles, two rails, a recessed panel — and that simplicity is exactly why it dominates modern kitchens and wardrobes. But "simple" ends at the drawing. In production there are two fundamentally different ways to make one, and they produce different cut lists, different CNC files and different costs. This guide walks through both.
The anatomy: stiles, rails, panel
Every framed door is five parts in disguise: two vertical stiles, two horizontal rails, and a centre panel. The proportions carry the look — narrow 60 mm frames read modern, wide 90–100 mm frames read classic. Whatever you pick: keep stile and rail widths consistent across every front in the run, or the eye catches it immediately.
Route 1: the routed front
The fastest way to a shaker look is a routed front: one slab of MDF or MFC, with the frame profile machined into the face on the CNC. One part on the cut list, one DXF with the routing contours, one machining cycle. The trade-offs: the "panel" is cosmetic (no real depth change in construction), edges are banded like any slab, and deep profiles in melamine-faced board expose the core. For painted MDF fronts this is the industry's everyday answer.
Route 2: true frame-and-panel
The classic construction builds the door from five real parts: stiles and rails joined around a floating panel. On the cut list that means five rows per door, each with its own dimensions, grain direction and edge treatment — and the frame parts carry the joinery operations. It is more work to produce, but it is the real thing: solid edges, a genuinely recessed panel, and the option to swap the centre for something other than wood.
Glass and mirror panels: order items, not nesting items
Once the frame is a real construction, the centre panel can be glass or a mirror — a vitrine door or a wardrobe mirror door. Production-wise these panels behave differently: you do not cut them from your sheet stock, you order them from a glazier at exact size. A correct cut list therefore shows them as order items with finished dimensions — never sent into the nesting layout, but never forgotten either. The frame around them is produced like any other five-part frame.
What this looks like in KWAL Cabinet Studio
In KWAL Cabinet Studio you pick the door model — flat, shaker or raised — and choose routed or true frame-and-panel construction, with your own stile and rail widths. The rest is generated: routed fronts get their profile contours in the per-panel DXF; frame-and-panel doors appear on the cut list as the full five-part frame; glass and mirror panels are listed as order items with exact sizes. Change the door from 600 to 450 mm wide and every part follows. Designing is free — try it at app.kwal.design.