Free Plan: 1912 Chafing-Dish Buffet
A compact Mission cabinet — and the first frame-and-panel door in the collection.
Free download. No signup required.
- Full cut list and slat layout
- Frame-and-panel door, step by step
- Fits a 20-inch corner
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First cabinet door done. What's next on the bench?
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The 1912 handbook calls this a chafing-dish buffet, which tells you how much has changed. A chafing dish is a pan that sits over a flame to keep food warm, and somebody built a whole cabinet to hold one.
Today it works as a kitchen cabinet, a bar cart, or a small sideboard. Twenty inches wide, thirty-six tall, four legs, two shelves, eight slats, brass hardware, and a door.
The door is what makes this plan worth building. A frame-and-panel door is the foundation of real cabinetry — once you have made one, you have made the part that shows up in every cabinet, wardrobe and sideboard you will ever want to build.
The plan covers the leg-and-rail carcase, the shelves, the slat layout, the back panel, and the door: stiles, rails, groove and floating panel.
Project at a Glance
- Difficulty
- Beginner to intermediate (carcase work plus a first frame-and-panel door)
- Main materials
- Quarter-sawn oak for legs, rails, shelves and top, panel stock for the door, back panel material, brass hardware, glue and dark stain
- Build time
- Two weekends
- Tools needed
- Table saw or hand saw, means of cutting a groove, drill and driver, chisels, clamps, square, sandpaper and finish supplies
- Safety
- Grooving and ripping — support the work fully and keep hands out of the blade path
- Source
- Popular Mechanics Handbooks, 1912 (public domain)
The one rule on this build:
Do not glue the panel. Glue belongs on the joints between the stiles and the rails — the frame — and nowhere else. The panel floats loose in its groove with a small gap at the edges, and it has to stay that way for the life of the piece. Wood moves across the grain with the seasons, and a panel this wide moves enough to feel with a thumbnail. Free to move, nothing happens. Glued in place, it swells, the frame refuses, and either the panel splits or a frame joint lets go — a season later, when nobody connects it to assembly day. Dry-fit the door, pencil the panel edges, and glue only where the pencil is not.
A door is also where a shop gets tested. Stiles and rails have to come out the same length within a hair, the groove has to sit the same distance from the same face on every piece, and any error shows up the moment the door is hung against a straight reference line.
Get through that once and the question changes from whether you can build cabinetry to what you build next.
Recommended Next Step
Your next project is already drawn up
Ted's Woodworking is a library of 16,000 woodworking plans with cut lists, measurements and step-by-step instructions — from small stands and shelves to full cabinets like this one.
It fits builders who finish one piece and want the next one waiting. If you only ever wanted this buffet, the plan above is all you need.
Ted's Woodworking
16,000 woodworking plans with cut lists and step-by-step instructions.
Disclosure: I may earn a commission if you buy through this link. It doesn't cost you extra.
Start with the buffet plan
Download the buffet plan and build at your own pace. The plan is yours whether or not the library ends up on your bench.