Ordering wood

[Carlneedshelp]

Hi guys

Just doing some measurements for wood that I need to order. It is for wardrobe carcass. The wardrobe will have two sections which I will assemble before slotting them in place between the frame I have fitted to the wall. One section is for shelving and the other is for hanging rails.

The shelves will be 35cm wide so with the 1.8mm sides the shelving section will be 38.6cm. The hanging section will be 75.8cm wide so with the sides it will be 79.4cm. Both together make 118cm which is exactly the space available in the frame.

My question is, would you order the wood so that there was a few mm space to make it easier to slide into the space?

Thanks

Carl

 

[ajmacleod]

I think if you're ordering wood you need to order a bit more than you actually need, not less - even if you're working things out (and able to cut) to the nearest tenth of a mm you're still going to lose wood to saw kerfs etc. When it does come to actually fitting the shelves I would personally aim to saw for a tiny fraction over actual width and take a shaving or two off with the plane to get the final fit.

That's just working with hand tools though, and not an especially steady hand - maybe you can cut things much more precisely. Even so, I wouldn't have thought a mm or two spare at the side of a shelf is likely to be a problem in most cases? Too tight and you risk bursting other joints apart anyway if the wood moves.

 

[bourbon]

if your local woodyard is anything like mine they will cut very approximately, so order longer than you need, also they haven't worked out how to gut things square so again more will be better

 

[Carlneedshelp]

Thanks for the replies. The wood that I am having cut is MDF and MFC and the yard cut to a very accurat 0.1mm. Just wondering if it was wise to allow a little wiggle room when slotting each section into place.

 

[HOJ]

Depends on how calibrated your measuring device is in the fist instance, compared to the cutters, at 0.1mm tolerance.

I made a kitchen for an appartment in London, they insisted on a 0.5mm tolerance, guess what happened, when we tried to install it.......

My advice, leave some slack.

Oh, and by the way, MDF and MFC isn't classed as "Wood" in my view.