This weekend I should be able to start working on the doors and drawer panels for my cabinets. I'm building bridal jointed frames with a flat panel. I want to use plywood for the panel, because I can match the grain of all the panels and don't have to resaw a ton of wood. Rather than cutting a groove and capturing the panel however, I'm wondering if I can rabbett the panel into the frame. See crappy sketch below.
I actually only want to do this on the drawer fronts, the doors will have a glass panel. The reason I want to do this is two-fold. First, it's quick. The frames can be rabbetted after they're glued up which also simplifies the glue up. Two, it makes the back of the assembled frame and panel flush, which makes it easier to screw it to the drawer box. It won't look as nice from behind as a frame and captured panel for sure, but once the frames are screwed to the drawer boxes the back side of the panel won't even be seen.Here's what I don't know though: can I glue a plywood panel into the solid frame, or will it eventually bust out from wood movement? Essentially this is the exact same process that we've all done to assemble a back panel into a solid cabinet, so I think it would work, but I don't think I've ever seen it done this way.
What's everyone think??
5 comments:
I dont think the ply-wood would even move, so im sure you're fine. If it does move, it wouldn't be a measurable amount. like you said, its kinda like gluing a cabinet back in.
That's my thinking too. Although it isn't the movement in the panel I'm worried about, but the movement in the frame. With a back panel in a cabinet there is virtually no movement in the cabinet because the cabinet sides are relatively thin so the movement is from the front of the cabinet to the back, perpendicular to the back panel. In this instance however, there is much more solid wood, 2.5 inches of it, that's moving the same direction as the panel. Is that enough movement to cause grief? I dunno.
This reminds me of a quote in some woodworking magazine I read one time that made me chuckle - "Plywood doesn't move and warp like solid wood. It moves and warps like plywood".
Hey Cody,
If you used quarter sawn material it expands in thickness more than it does in width. It would help minimize the movement of the frame.
You could buy 8/4 flat sawn stock and just rip your rails and stiles from it and get a lot of quartered stuff.
This is assuming you are using a wood that has decent quartered grain unlike oak for example.
I was thinking about that too, so I phoned every hardwood dealer I could to try and find quartered birch. They were all like 'uh... I've never heard of that'. The closest I could find was Gary Chanin in Edmonton had some 6x6 birch cants that I would have been able to resaw into whatever I want. In the end I ended up buying some really wide planks of 8/4, and I'm going to resaw it at about a 45 degree angle. I don't think I'll get any quartersawn stuff but I should be able to get riftsawn.
I have done this same tech, on a few sets of cabinets, I have never had a problem because all the glue lines are long grain which hardly moves. then when I attached the drawer front to the drawer I screwed though the front panel into the stile and rails trapping the panel making the drawer front stronger.
this is a common tech in manufactured cabinets so I think you will be safe
hope this helps
Joey
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