Making ledged and braced interior doors

[grainoftruth]

I'm planning to make some oak ledged and braced doors for my home and am looking for a bit of advice. I have a few doors already, they were made by a joinery company and are close to perfect - they look great and remain perfectly true from season to season.

What puzzles me is that I know the humidity in my house varies quite a lot because the oak floor where the current doors are shows many signs of shrinkage during winter when the heating is on all of the time. Also, I have some ledged oak cupboard doors elsewhere that bow and flatten between seasons as the T&G face expands and shrinks but the ledges allow no movement. Why don't the full sized L&B doors suffer the same fate?

I can only guess that either the the screw holes in the ledges and braces are slotted to facilitate movement or the cross tongues are glued with an adhesive that allows each board on the face to move independently. Any experts out there to give me a clue?

Thanks

Steve

 

[joiner_sim]

I'm an expert on making these, but cannot really say how the boards do not move! :roll:
I wouldn't advise using any adhesive on these boards as it would restrict the movement they require and would split and break off. The screw holes could be slotted, although i have never done that myself on LBB doors.

 

[OPJ]

There's a decent article on making ledged and braced doors in the current issue of Good Woodworking magazine. With more information available here. :wink:

 

[grainoftruth]

Good stuff, thanks guys.

I had read the Good Woodworking article, but it didn't seem to cover the movement point I was worried about. Good article though.

I think using no glue must be the answer. My cupboard doors are definitely glued and they move quite badly. I can see that my full sized doors are cross-tongued and just assumed this must be glued, but maybe not.

Cheers

Steve

 

[Steve Maskery]

Give Roger a poke, he's just done a load for his own house, I think.
S