Your advice please

[davidc1075]

I am just about to make a cabinet for the bathroom, I have 1" elm boards 12" wide. I want to make up some doors for the cabinet. Should I rip the boards in half and re joint them. The wood was kiln dried and has been stored for 6 months now. I am just a little concerned that I may have problems. Any ideas or advice on how best to proceed.

 

[ByronBlack]

Hi David

Let me preface this advice with the following warning: I'm no expert!

In all the reading i've done over the last year or so comes to the same conclusion: it's almost always worth reducing and making up a panel of narrower panels to avoid cupping/bowing. Seeing as it's for a bathroom, I would imagine the moisture and temperature differences would eventually effect the stability of the board. It's a relatively quick procedure, and if done carefully, it will be very difficult to spot the glue line.

 

[Waka]

David

Not sure if I understand you correctly, are you intending to do solid doors?

have you considered doing panelled doors?

 

[davidc1075]

Yes I was intending make a rails and style door with a solid panel. My concern was exactly as Byron mentioned about cupping but there is a very nice figure that I want to have on the door panel so I am reluctant to have to make it up with smaller panels. If I rip the panel in half and re glue would I have to flip one over to alternate the growth rings as you would do if making up a table top.

 

[Woody Alan]

Just to stimulate further discussion as I am interested in the more experienced views on this, Byron is correct I would have thought by the book given the humidity changes of the room.
But If the elm is quartersawn and has shown stability for the last six months under interior conditions I think I would be tempted to keep it uncut, if you are that enchanted by the figure. If it is cut from close to the edge of the trunk -through cut- it may be more questionable but to get a board that wide that close to the edge to would be difficult I would have thought.
A possible alternative is to deep bandsaw it and glue to 6mm MDF and back with a stable veneer perhaps.

Alan

 

[woodbloke]

My recent experience with this stuff is that once stable (it has been conditioned indoors for a reasonable period of time - two or three months say) it will stay flat.....you hope. In somewhere like a bathroom I wouldn't trust a solid door to stay dead flat, IMHO it will soon start to cup and warp all over the place, unless you are lucky enough to have a true quarter sawn board. Better I think to put the elm inside a panel - Rob

 

[Woody Alan]

Better I think to put the elm inside a panel - Rob

I think he is Rob, unless I misunderstand, his question is whether to use the panel whole or reripped inside the frame.

Alan

 

[davidc1075]

Yes I did want to use the panel inside a frame

 

[Benchwayze]

Hi David,

I know you will be dry fitting the panel, but if you are making the door with a 'captive panel', rather than a panel dropped into a rebate, then just rub a candle on the corners and edges of the panel, before assembly and cramping up.

There is likely to be glue-seepage into the groove inside and the candle wax will stop the panel fom becoming glued to the frame.

Not that I wish to teach you to suck eggs. 'Twas just a thought.

John

 

[9fingers]

When I'm making panel doors I quite often do the final sanding and most of the staining/finishing on the panel before the frame glue up.
Usually glue wont stick to the finish coating and it allows in to move in the fame as needed and won't risk the telltale glimpse of unfinished wood if it does move. An added advantage is that sanding is a lot easier especially on a raised panel without the frame.

just my 2p

Bob

 

[Anonymous]

12" isn't that wide for a panel if you are talking about trad construction of floating panel in a frame.
But 1" is thick. I'd reduce it to 1/2" max, praps 10mm, then any tendency to warp will be held in check by the frame to some extent. At 1" the warping panel would push the frame out instead.
If you are talking about 1" thick un-framed solid wood doors then this is a primitive form of construction and you just have to accept the instability as a "rustic" feature.

cheers
Jacob