I didn’t know finely crafted dog kennels existed until I was shown a picture of a beautifully built kennel and asked if I could make something similar. If you’re going to have a dog kennel it might as well be a beautiful piece of furniture.
This creation is a unique piece of fine furniture created for two very large dogs. It has two drawers on the outside and two fold-down shelves for electronics inside the two compartments.
Start by milling the poplar parts for the face frame. These pieces end up being approximately 1 7/8″ wide and 13/16″ thick. Before placing the wide poplar boards against the fence and jointing the edge, the face is flattened at the jointer. The opposite edge is then ripped parallel by placing that edge up against the table saw fence.
I created this jig to ensure that all of the mortises I cut with the router would be uniform. It also makes the job go much quicker. Two poplar boards and some scraps serve as the jig’s starting and stopping points for the router. They are all adhered to a platform-making piece of plywood with glue.
To cut the tenons, use a sled and a dado stack on the table saw. The length of the tenons is made repeatable and uniform across all of the work pieces by clamping a stop in place on the table saw sled.
Check the mortis and tenons until a good friction fit is achieved. To allow for glue swelling, they must be relatively easy to pull apart, but they must also be sufficiently tight so that the joint will stay together when you pick them up.
Following completion of all the pieces, dry fit the entire frame and use a shoulder plane to adjust any joints that fit too tightly.
Clamp the top and bottom of each pair of work pieces that will support bars while simultaneously measuring and drawing their lines to ensure alignment. Using a 7/16″ bit, drill every hole for the round metal bars at the drill press.
Now, it’s time to work on the metal bars. Cut them to length with a chop saw, then use a disc sander to smooth out the ends.
Mineral Spirits can be used to remove any grease or oil, enabling the stock to be painted. Spray paint and clear coat are applied in several coats to the bars.
To fit the side panels, use the table saw to cut a groove into each piece of work that won’t receive bars. To achieve a good friction fit, creep up on the groove’s width.
The bandsaw is used to resaw a piece of poplar that will be used as a side panel. This will enable you to stretch the wood further and increase its thickness.
The planer is used on both pieces to make the sides parallel. These panels curled because I milled them way too thin, which caused me problems during assembly. I advise making the panel roughly one-third the thickness of the frame.
Each face frame piece’s grooves receive the panels. I had to struggle with them because of the poor curling, but I eventually managed to get them to fit.
The router is used to cut the opposing rabbet joints that will be used to join the front and side face frames. The best way to provide the frames with a lot of edge grain for glue surface was in this way. It ended up being very strong.
To accommodate the rear ship lap, the back of the side frames is given a wider rabbet.
One piece of plywood will form the kennel’s bottom. I lengthen the bottom with the circular saw.
Dog Kennel Plans Step 1: Plan the size of your outside dog kennelFor sound guidance and tips for building first-class outdoor dog kennels, we contacted Lisa Peterson, director of communications for the American Kennel Club. She gave us
Designing Your Dog Kennel
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1 Decide how big the kennel will be. The size of the kennel should be based on how big your dog is and how long it will be in the kennel each day. The larger your dog and longer amount of time it will spend in the kennelthe larger the kennel should be.[1]
- For a smaller dog