Frame and panel door thickness

[Brian Penning]

Been scouring through all my design books and plans trying to find a general rule of thumb, to no avail.
Normally, are the rails/stiles (frame) and the floating panel the same thickness?
Or perhaps the frame should be thicker than the panel to keep it flat perhaps?

Does it matter?

TIA for any and all replies..

[Jeff Sudmeier]

I have made frame and panels three ways.

1) With a raised panel that is the same thickness as the frame. (The back of the panel had a rabbet to fit in the frame)

2) With a raised panel that is 2/3'rds the thickness of the frame. The front was raised and the back was flat, fit into the frame without the rabbet

3) With plywood for the panels.

[Brian Penning]

I have made frame and panels three ways.

1) With a raised panel that is the same thickness as the frame. (The back of the panel had a rabbet to fit in the frame)

2) With a raised panel that is 2/3'rds the thickness of the frame. The front was raised and the back was flat, fit into the frame without the rabbet

3) With plywood for the panels.

Thanks, but what were the thickness's that you used? 3/4", 7/8", etc.?

[Rob Cunningham]

I make my RP doors ( rails, stiles, and panel) 3/4" thick.

[Joe Scharle]

I stick with 3/4 so I don't have to adapt off-the-shelf hinges.

[Russ Boyd]

Yes, you "generally" use the same thickness. Raised or even depends on where you locate the panel. The back doesn't really matter as it doesn't show. I have seen some backs that look as nice as the front too.

[Phil Warnement]

I made a built-in china cabinet with divided light doors on top and raised panel doors on the botton. The instructions for the divided light doors called out 7/8" thick rail and stiles, so that's what I went with on the raised panel doors.

In the end, I was glad I did because it made the whole assembly that much stronger.

I really thiink that the thickness of the door should be based on the application you are putting it in. Just my $.02.

[Frank Drew]

From what I've done, and seen elsewhere, cabinet door panels are rarely as thick as the framing members; if you typically groove the rails and stiles in the middle of their thickness, and raise the panel only on once face (the "outside" face), the inner face of the panel is usually flat, so ends up recessed inside the frame (say 1/4" with 3/4" frames); I like the look of a raised panel that's a bit proud of the frame, but not by 1/4", and many here say they position the raised panel so that it's flush with the frame faces; in either case, that wouldn't add up to 3/4" material for the panel; IMO, it's an unnecessary step if you have to rabbet it's back to fit into the grooves just to accommodate a thick panel.

Passage door raised panels are treated differently since they show equally from both sides; they might be as thick or even thicker than the frame parts (to show a bit more boldly) or there might even be double panels with space in between in really thick doors (say, 2" or so.)

[David DeCristoforo]

You will get a lot of opinions on this but the rule is that there are no rules. It's completely at the discretion of the designer/maker and has much more to do with how you want the door to look than with any functional issues. The exception would be insulated exterior doors where you would want the panel to be as thick as possible to accommodate as much insulation as possible.