Raised panel rail and stile width questions...

[Sean Rainaldi]

I am starting to build my raised panels for our kitchen cabinets with Sommerfeld’s shaker style profile set – I’m doing hard maple. What I am wondering is what would be a good width for my rails and stiles - I guess they should all be the same width. The narrowest panels I need are for 2 pull out spice racks of which the panels will measure 8 inches wide and some drawers which measure 7" high by about 30" wide, and my biggest drawer the panels would be about 31 inches wide x 21" high. Would it look weird if I did 2.5 inch wide rails and stiles for the narrow drawers and pantry panels (because the raised panels would be narrower than that rails and stiles)? Or should I just go with a glued up plank of wood without rails and stiles for the narrow stuff?

That brings me to another question – what is the widest single board I would want to use for either a raised panel, or just a panel without rail and stile construction (say for a 5 or 6 inch deep drawer), before I start gluing up panels? Is there a general rule like boards should be no more than 3 or 4 inches wide and then one should start gluing up to prevent warping if they get wider than that?

Thanks for any suggestions.

[Frank Drew]

Sean,

A panel glued up from a number of boards isn't necessarily more stable than a panel made from a single board, alternating the growth rings or not. 15" of wood is still 15" of wood with all the potential movement. And with too many boards your panel starts to look like a mish-mash, IMO.

Choosing carefully seasoned wood, however, can offer you some degree of insurance against unhappy surprises.

I like to make the bottom rail a bit wider than the other rails and stiles; I think the resulting frame looks better plus the somewhat wider tenons add a bit of strength to the joints on the rail that carries the weight of the panel.

[David DeCristoforo]

Play with this. Rip some pieces of various widths and see what works best with your design. The visual difference between 2" stiles and 2.5" or 3" can be dramatic. Especially when you start lining up doors on a whole wall of cabinets. This is a design element so there are no "rules", just what looks best for the project and to your eye. Also, there is no reason that all of the stiles and rails have to be the same width. Your doors may look "better" with a wider bottom rail. Or you might find that if you choose wider stiles, you might want narrower stiles on the inside edges of door pairs to reduce the visual mass of two adjacent 3" stiles. It's something that can dramatically affect the overall look of your project so it would merit some consideration.

[Frank Drew]

Picking up on David's thoughts, a simple elevation drawing of your project, to scale, will give you a lot of information about proportions and visually pleasing dimensions.

[Dan Phalen]

These cabinets came with our new house 3 years ago, so I can't take credit (or blame) for them. Might give you an idea of proportion though.
http://www.crestonwood.com/forum/cab1.png
http://www.crestonwood.com/forum/cab2.png
http://www.crestonwood.com/forum/cab3.png
All the drawers are milled from 6" hard maple and the 12" deep drawers in the island (not shown) are two pieces of butt-joined 6" stock. The narrowest panel is the trash receptacle between the DW and sink and goes about 5.5" for the panel. All cab rails and stiles are 2.25" wide with simple ogee.

Note these are NOT raised panels, for a euro look.

Hope these help.

[Stan Urbas]

For me, 2" rails & styles are just too narrow. You start to run into problems with the cup holes for the hinges, for one thing. The other is that if you use space balls to stop rattle you have to make sure they are close to the ends, or they can push out and cause the rails or styles to warp.

I just finished a cherry kitchen that has R&S doors and drawers, with the rails & styles all at 2 1/4" width. The top drawer fronts are 6 1/2" total, and that means a panel with a 2" reveal. No problem, they look great. Also have one door that is very narrow for a tray cupboard, again no problem.

So appearance-wise this was not an issue. You could even go narrower. However, the one thing to watch out for are the drawer handles. If you are doing mission-style with flat (NOT raised) panels, that means the handles are also recessed 1/4", if mounted on the centers. If you get the panels too narrow it won't leave much room for fingers.

All that being said, I am seriously considering going to 2 1/2" R&S for future work, because of the appearance.

[David DeCristoforo]

2 1/4" is "industry standard" for RP doors. To me, it's too narrow and makes the doors look "light weight" especially if there is an inside and outside edge detail. 2 1/4" will "work" for "shaker style" doors where all of the edges are square. But, even there, it still looks "too narrow" for my taste. I rarely use less that 2 1/2" widths, especially if there is a cope and stick detail.

[Sean Rainaldi]

Thanks for all the comments folks. Just to clarify, I am assuming that by ”reveal" above, Stan means the amount the raised panel is visible, is this correct?

Also does Stan mean to place spaceballs close to the ends of the stiles (for 2” narrow stiles)?

Since I am doing raised panels with that shaker bit set that for the drawers I assume I would have to go with just a flat panel without rails and stiles (for the 6 or 7 inch drawers), because if I go with 2.5" rails and stiles that leaves only an and inch or 2 for the panel and that would not even be enough to show the panel bevel do you agree?

I am thinking about going with 2 3/8 or 2.5 “ rails and stiles for the doors and large drawer fronts and then just flat panel hardwood for the narrower drawers.

One thing I am concerned about though, had I known when I bought the lumber months ago, most of my hard maple I have found is flat sawn; I just read in Woodworking mag Summer ’09 that flat sawn wood is the most prone to movement compared to quarter sawn or rift sawn, so should I be concerned about movement if making 6 or 7” wide drawer fronts from flat sawn hard maple? I bought it because the price was good but I guess now I will be more careful picking out wood, I guess quarter sawn is more expensive...

[Dan Phalen]

Sean, FWIW I found this short video very helpful in understanding the differences among rift, quarter, and flat sawn lumber.

http://woodtreks.com/why-sawyers-plane-flat-rift-or-quarter-saw-lumber/315/

[Neal Clayton]

quarter sawn is more expensive but consider the context here.

if you're making a 10 foot by 6 foot pocket door, yeah you want vertical grain on rails and stiles so that it tends to stay straight. a 6" drawer front? don't worry about it, that's very likely too short a length for there to be any problems no matter which way the grain goes.

[John Lucas]

You mentionded that it was a SOmmerfeld bit set. Did you get the video that he made on the subject. It answers all the question you posed here and is a very good teaching video. Get it.

[Steve Clardy]

I settled on 2-1/2" rail and stiles several years ago.

[Steve Jenkins]

I used 2-1/2" for the rails and stiles and for the drawer banks I made up a single door-like unit with 2-1/2" top and bottom rails and 2-5/8" intermediate rails then after it was all glued together I cross cut through the center of the 2-5/8 rails to make the individual drawer fronts. That gave a good grain match on all the drawer rails and 1/8" reveal between them. For the BIG pots and pans drawer under the oven I made two small doors and attached them side by side to the drawer box. Looked really nice.
http://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=124742&d=1249581422

[C Scott McDonald]

Another thing to consider in stile width is what kind of hinges you are going to use. I made a small vanity and used euro hinges and was surprised to find they required a minimum 2 and 1/4 stiles.

Steve, I saw the pictures of your kitchen in the projects forum but, wow, you just hit that one out of the park with those.

Scott

[Steve Clardy]

I use Salice euro's.
Minimum stile width is 1-3/4 for the hinge to work.

[Chip Lindley]

Regardless of rail/stile widths, I am worried about those 30" wide drawers! Those are quite wide indeed, and will have to be *over-built* with 3/4" sides and bottoms to prevent sagging.

Building *heavy* reduces usable space considerably, and demands use of side-mounted slides. (no hidden under-mounts!) Unless that extreme width is needed for very large items, perhaps dividing the drawers in half might make a very interesting drawer bank!

[Sean Rainaldi]

Wow I go a few days so many helpful comments thanks so much on all this. I’ve definitely decided to go with 2 7/16” rails and stiles. And Yes John Lucas I have had that shaker bit set video from Sommerfeld for a few years watched it several times. His vids are great I wish I had Mark Sommerfeld as my high school shop teacher I probably would have gotten into woodworking much earlier.

OK the only other question I have other what's above, I’m finishing rough cutting my stock and I have to decide whether to go with rails and stiles, or just a single panel, for two 8” wide by 29 ¼ high fronts for two pull out spice pantries. Any one want to chime in – is doing an 8” wide front out of a single 8” wide board in hard maple OK or am I asking for trouble with warping (I’m going with ¾” thickness)?

Chip the 30” wide drawers are already built, I made them out of ¾” Baltic birch, the biggest is 30" x 22.5 x 19" deep, others are about 12 inches deep, and dovetailed joint construction using the Leigh Jig. The thing weighs almost 50 lbs. I also built a 30” top drawer out of hard maple sides, 5.5" deep and the floor is ½” cab grade plywood so it should be OK. My lady wanted all large deep pull out drawers on the bottoms so it’s easier to get at her stuff, she has arthritis and it’s hard to get on her knees, so I built some 20” and some 2 high at 12 inches deep.