There must be an easier way...

[BobSchaefer]

I've attached a part assembly of a cabinet door. The current height is a little shorter than I want, and I want to make it a little taller. What makes this challenging is the fact that the one side is angled at 5 degrees. For this part, I basically built most of it, pulled it into a drawing and measured the distance for the bottom rail. There must be an easier way to do this. I'm having the same problem with other parts of the design as well, I'm having to do what I consider a very round about way of getting the length of the bottom rail.

So, what I'm looking for are suggestions on how others would work out the length of the bottom rail if I say make the door 4 inches taller. The angle should stay the same, and for right now, the top rail will stay the same, but how do I easily get the length of the angled stile and the bottom rail?

Suggestions greatly appreciated!!

 

[JordanCClark]

Hi, Bob!

The Law of Sines will work to give you how much more material will be in the bottom rail comared to the top rail.


a/sin(A) = b/sin(B) = c/sin(C)

plugging in your numbers (I'll round the angle to 5deg to keep it simple):

22/sin(85deg) = b/sin(5deg) = c/sin(90)

b= (22*sin(5deg)) / sin(85deg) = 1.923 (remember, I use 5 deg and not 5.03 deg, so my number is a tad shorter)


The angled rail can be found the same way

c=(22*sin(90deg)) / sin(85deg) = 22.084

or, using Pythagoran theroem:

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

c = sqrt(22^2 + 1.923^2) = 22.084

So, plug in your door height in place of the 22 and you know how much longer the bottom rail has to be.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

 

[JordanCClark]

Whoops!

The triangle for the side rail, should encompass the entire rail (you can see from my pic that the length of the top rail is not included in my first calculation.)

So, using your model again, you'd use 24.5 instead of the 22 in the previous post. Sorry 'bout that.

24.5/sin(85deg) = c/sin(90deg) :arrow: sin(90 deg) = 1, so that will cancel

c = 24.593

 

[BobSchaefer]

Thanks Jordan, for some reason I always seem to forget my basic geometry and trig. It'll help me tremendously as I work to make the entire piece bigger. So again, thanks!