When it comes to installing the glass panes in the sides and door of the display cabinet, one option is to use wooden moldings cut to the necessary size. We could secure the glass simply with small nails, a decorative cord around the glass also nailed, with glazier’s putty for glass, or even with hot glue, but I think the most decorative option that achieves the best effect when viewed from the outside is to use wooden moldings (although I’m not sure if that’s the correct name, as I believe moldings usually have a rounded edge).
By placing wooden strips inside to hold the glass panes in the sides of the display cabinet, and in its door or window, we achieve a groove effect seen from the outside that creates the impression that these glass supports and the other parts are a single piece.
In the previous post about the display cabinet, we saw how I cut the strips I need, some with a square section and others rectangular and “almost flat.” One option could have been to buy them (you can find similar sized strips in DIY stores), since cutting and sanding them is a lot of work, and the result might not be as good as we’d like. However, having a homemade thickness planer allows us to easily prepare these strips by planing them to the desired dimensions with surfaces practically ready for painting.
All the posts about how to make this wooden display cabinet.
To cut these small wooden strips with a 9mm square section, I used my Stanley miter box, which, in addition to the 45º cut, also allows for 30º and 90º cuts, making it very handy for cutting the wooden moldings for the sides. I simply measure and cut, then sand the cut area a bit and check that the pieces fit in place. Precision isn’t crucial here, so I don’t complicate things too much.
In the display cabinet window, I also have a routed box to hold the glass, like on the sides, but in this case, the height of the slot is just a bit more than the 3mm thickness of the glass, so I use 5mm thick and 2cm wide strips that I screw outside the slot, directly on top of the window wood, so that they also cover the glass.
To make it look like a more refined job, I join the corners at 45 degrees by cutting the ends of the strips in the miter box. Measuring and cutting doesn’t seem like a good option to me, as using the tape measure I never get a good result with miter cuts, so I follow a process where I overlap the piece already in place over the one I’m going to cut to mark the cut area directly without measuring. Just keep in mind that the mark I make with the pen belongs to the piece I want, so I shouldn’t cut right on top of it but to the side and outside. You can follow the whole process in the video.
It’s also worth noting that when cutting, you sometimes have to pay attention to the direction of the saw cut. My backsaw cuts mainly when I push it forward, so in the miter box, I try to lift it a bit when pulling back to press it down on the wood again while pushing it forward. Otherwise, when pulling back, the saw just bounces on the wood because the saw teeth are designed to cut mostly in the forward direction.