How would you fix this

[Bud McCreadie]

This is a mahogany tray, 22"x24", built two weeks ago for my daughter. The panel is 14 glued slats. The panel sides are rabbited and glued into dados on the side frames. The panel ends use a sliding dovetail to attach the end frames. The first glue-up away from the side frame is pulling apart on one end.
The glue used for this project is Tightbond Original. One repair thought is to try to open the glue bond on the side frames with heat.
I suspect the 24 pct. house humidity this week as the culprit. Should have floated the whole panel. Shoulda, coulda, woulda....
Appreciate your solutions, guys
Thanks
Bud

[Arnold E Schnitzer]

You're right, it's a dryness problem, combined with cross-grain glue-up. If you pull it together, it will break somewhere else. I think you have to add wood instead. That won't be easy.

[Bud McCreadie]

In my OP I neglected to say that the sliding dovetail joining the panel end-grain to the frame is floating, no cross-grain glue-ups.

Arnold, thanks for the input. By adding a wedge of wood in the separation do you think I might run the risk of breaking that corner miter in summer humidity?

[Joe Jensen]

Bud, just to clarify, the edge grain of the large bottom panel has sliding dovetails and no glue to the edge so it can slide freely? What is the joint between the bottom and edge grain sides? Any glue there? It's possible some glue squeezed out from the corner joints and locked the cornerns of the bottom.

That looks like a large tray. Say it's 20" wide, it could move 1/4" easily through the seasons. Is there enough dado on the sides to cover if it shrinks that much?

I've never had a glue joint fail by itself, it's always something like glue squeezing out from the corners that causes it.

[Bud McCreadie]

Joe, the 22" wide by 24" long panel is glued to the frame on the 24" dimension. The 22" wide end-grain is an unglued sliding dovetail. Your inquiry makes me see the error of my ways: Locking the side frames to the panel. Something has to give.
Now I have to figure a way to save as much as possible or start over. Is there a way to unglue the side frame?

[johnny means]

Joe, the 22" wide by 24" long panel is glued to the frame on the 24" dimension. The 22" wide end-grain is an unglued sliding dovetail. Your inquiry makes me see the error of my ways: Locking the side frames to the panel. Something has to give.
Now I have to figure a way to save as much as possible or start over. Is there a way to unglue the side frame?

I would rip off the dovetailed members then turn them into breadboard ends. Cut "tenons" into your panel ends (you essentially have a panel with a lip) to match the rest of the panel, cut a groove into your dovetailed sides. Then use an appropriate attachment method that allows the entire panel to float between the ends. I bet you could pull this off and only lose an inch of length.

[Joe Jensen]

Bud, always room to learn in this hobby. Just this afternoon I was wet sanding some lacquer to rub it out on really nice jewelry box. Used some scrap carpet to pad the bench and some water got on the carpet. I got distracted by a honey do project and left the jewelry box for a couple of hours. The wet carpet caused a couple of small areas on the jewelry box to swell ruining the lacquer. Now I need to resand, respray, and let it cure another week before I can rub it out. Nothing like pushing the Christmas deadlines :(

On your project, can you make it a little smaller? If yes, then I'd sacrifice the sides and carefully cut the corner joints. Then with steam or heat you can soften yellow carpenters glue (Titebond 1 or 2 or Elmers Carpenter glue). Remove the sides. Then slide the ends off. Now rip a little off each side of the bottom where the glue failed and reglue. You will have to resand and refinish, but if it was easy it wouldn't be a lesson learned as well :)

Now hopefully you can reuse the ends with the sliding dovetails and just make new sides. You'll have to recut the ends to length as the panel will be a little smaller.

On the panel width, wood moves with humidity. It's dry most places now, and if the wood is dry, it will expand some when summer comes. So, you should make the bottom panel a little smaller than the space for it on the sides so it can expand. If not, it will break the corner glue joints. Also, I like to pin it in the center of each sliding dovetail to keep the panel from sliding all the way from one side to the other. I'd say you want at least 3/8" deep dados on each side, maybe 1/2" if you have thick enough sides. This way you can leave a little more than 1/8" gap on each side now since it's winter.

There is a great book, "Understanding Wood" which has tables of expansion and contraction for every species. With that book and a moisture meter you can plan and build for the current condition of the wood moisture content.

[Bud McCreadie]

John and Joe, thank you for your solutions.
I will steam off the sides, trim off the rabbits, widen the 3/8" dadoes, shorten the end frames, and float the whole panel in the frame. Will also spline the reglued miters and pin the center of the dovetail joinery.
I've been lucky until now with wood movement. I'll add the moisture meter to my Christmas list!