Elm kitchen doors

[Ratter]

I have some nice boards of kiln-dried elm which I bought last autumn and have been sitting indoors getting acclimatised ever since. They were a bit of an impulse buy on eBay but the price was good.

I've come around to thinking they would look nice in the kitchen, so I am considering making them into panel doors.

So, is this wise? - you don't see many elm kitchens. Is this because it is fairly scarce, not very trendy at the moment or is movement too much of a problem?

The wall cupboard doors will be glass fronted with a 80mm wide frame- should I put the glass in the narrowest rebate to give rigidity or will the glass crack if the wood moves? Alternatively should I use a standard panel cutter set with a 6mm groove and take up the spare 2mm with something flexible?

Others will have wood panels, but my wife favours thinner panels rather than raised ones. If I make 6mm panels will the doors have enough resistance to twist?

Finally, does anybody know a supplier with a good range of profile scribing sets - most have just the standard ogee which is a bit fussy for a kitchen - I'm thinking about cleaning them now and are looking for something with a gently sloping edge rather than a complex curve.

Any advice would be gratefully received

 

[woodbloke]

Make sure before you do any work that your elm is as dry as a 'dry thing'....bone, whatever. It will twist, warp and move at the drop of a hat so very careful acclimatization in the environment where it's going to be used is very, very desirable. It makes little difference IMO if it's kilned as timber is like a sponge ie if the air around is more humid than the timber it will absorb moisture and if drier the timber will give out moisture, so a happy balance needs to be found, 'specially with something like elm - Rob

 

[Roy Clarke]

Elm? that's a really nice choice IMO. Very attractive. Once it's dried and oiled and waxed, I wouldn't worry about it moving. It might move, but so what? They're kitchen cupboards, not engineering toolmakers jigs. Live with it instead of trying to fight with it (that's what women are for :wink: ).

For doing the edges, Shopnotes recently had a setup for panel raising using a home made jig on a table saw to give the sloping edges..

 

[Scrit]

Others will have wood panels, but my wife favours thinner panels rather than raised ones. If I make 6mm panels will the doors have enough resistance to twist?

You'll find that they will warp and potentially split at that thickness, so you'll need to condition them well and use an impervious finish (i.e not oil). 1/4in panels were quite common in Victorian doors where I live and they often don't survive too well, possibly because being so thin they are more prone to warping if one side of the door is in a wetter environment that the other (e.g. our bathroom door!)

Scrit

 

[woodbloke]

Scrit is quite right but elm will twist and warp at almost any thickness. As an aside and completely off topic, did you know that the Romans (I think) used hollowed out elm logs to transport water and these were laid alongside the roads?.....hence the term 'trunk' road. Not a lot of people know that.....just a thought - Rob

 

[Scrit]

As an aside and completely off topic, did you know that the Romans (I think) used hollowed out elm logs to transport water and these were laid alongside the roads?

Not just the Romans. They were commonly used in the UK until the early 19th century when they were rapidly displaced by cast iron. I can recall seeing pieces which had been dug up by gangs relaying water mains in Liverpool as late as the late 80s, although they were no longer "in water" they had not completly rotted after nearly 200 years underground

Scrit

 

[Ratter]

Thanks for all the replies.

I am now wondering whether it might be wiser to use veneered MDF for the panels, particularly as my wife likes the Shaker look with flat panels, so that no substrate would be exposed.

Is elm faced MDF available and how easy would it be to get a decent match for my existing boards?

Another idea was to use thicker panels of elm, with the extra thickness at the back of the panel.

We originally thought that we would like to use elm because we have an old Ercol dresser which has sat in the kitchen for several years without any obvious movement.

The boards have been in the house now for about 9 months, although not actually in the kitchen, so I would hope they are acclimatised reasonably well.

Scrit might be interested to know that they originally came from the other side of the Pennines and were cut from trees cleared from a park in Huddersfield.

I haven't had a lot of luck looking for Shaker type panel scribing cutters, so I may order some from the 'States. I've got quite a lot of doors to make so it looks like a good Woodrat job.

I can see that I also need to read up a bit on different types of finish and their properties.

And of course, you can always rely on lots of interesting info about non-wood matters on this forum - great pub quiz stuff

 

[Scrit]

Is elm faced MDF available and how easy would it be to get a decent match for my existing boards?

Generally not. Veneered stock is normally only produced from readily available timbers, which elm isn't. In any case you'll presumably be looking for 6mm in which thickness the range of veneers is even more limited.

I haven't had a lot of luck looking for Shaker type panel scribing cutters, so I may order some from the 'States. I've got quite a lot of doors to make so it looks like a good Woodrat job.

A shaker door is basically a conventional T&G door with the arrisses knocked off. It can be made with a grooving cutter and mortise chisel for the stiles and a biggish diameter bottom cutter (such as the CMT down cut mortise cutters) for the tenons. No need for a cope and stick set at all (which in any case wouldn't allow a proper tenon)

As far as the use of elm goes the name which always gets mentioned is Ercol, as if to say that it's use in solid timber furniture is normal. In reality very few manufacturers have attempted follow Ercol's lead not least because elm is not the easiest of timbers to season or work. It has a tendency to warp badly during drying as well as to collapse if not closely sticked and well weighted down - problems which Ercol have invested a lot of time and money to overcome. The other problems are that it has a tendency to bind in sawing and can pick-up badly when machine planing or spindle moulding. So a potentially tricky timber to use with a relatively high wastage factor

Scrit

 

[Ratter]

I'm getting a definite feeling that elm isn't such a good idea for a kitchen and if I am realistic I probably haven't enough to for it all anyway.

So, I'm wondering what else there is with the same sort of grain? I'm particularly keen to have something fairly pale but not as bland looking as birch or beech. The existing doors are home-made by the previous owner in (rather rough and twisted) 2 x 1 sapele with plywood panels and are really quite dark.

Oak is an obvious choice but is there anything I haven't thought of?

 

[Scrit]

Possibly olive ash as it has an open pore structure

Scrit