Final Milling for Cabinet Doors

[Bob Johnson2]

I'm stuck and could use some advise, been walking around my lumber stack all day now trying to decide how to go about the milling steps to take for my kitchen cabinet doors. I've never tried a project this big and really don't want to screw up all this nice lumber making a stupid mistake.
Have 2 stacks of clear cherry, the stacks divided by color differing a shade or 2, close enough where it's not a big deal but I figured I'd try to keep the glue ups for the raised panels the same color. Each stack is 8 boards, 7'x9-10"x1", plain sawn. I need to end up with 14' of 3 1/2" and 150' of 2 1/2 for the door frames. I skip planed it and squared one edge a year ago so I could see what I had to work with before building the cabinet fronts.
What I'm struggling with is should I crosscut the boards down to the rough door heights before milling or attempt to flatten one side of the 7'ers on my 6" jointer? I supposed I could build a sled for the planer, but at 7'x10" it'll be a task to build and use. I could also rip off the outside 2 1/2"+ edges of the boards to use for the door frames and use the inner flat sawn section for the panels. What would you do?

[tyler mckee]

Im no pro, but i would cross cut to rough lengths, leaving an inch or three. Much easier to work with and less material will have to come off to flatten and square it up.

[Paul Greathouse]

I agree with Tyler, cross cut about 3" longer than final length. The reason for the extra length being planer snipe. Just about any planer has the potential for snipe. I very seldom get snipe with my 20" planer but it has happened. The smaller planers will present more of a problem in this area.

If you have a larger model planer you can do as it do on the panels. I cut the pieces about 3 inches longer, then I joint and plane the individual pieces down to about 7/8". Jointing first is important so that the finished thickness coming out of the planer will be even across the width of the board.

After that I do the glue ups. after the glue has dried I scrape the excess glue and then run the panels through the 20" planer one pass on each side, down to 3/4" thickness. Doing so, will perfectly flatten any slight imperfections in your glueup and make the sanding go much faster.

For panels that are wider than 20", I will make two narrow glueups as stated earlier and then I have only one glue line to deal with during the final glueup. The last step would be to cut to final length.

[Bob Johnson2]

Thanks guys, the widest panel is 13".

[fRED mCnEILL]

I am curious about putting the glue up thru the planer. Does that not raise hell with the stiles(or is it rails-anyway the horizintal pieces?

Thanks

Fred

[Bob Johnson2]

I am curious about putting the glue up thru the planer. Does that not raise hell with the stiles(or is it rails-anyway the horizintal pieces?

Thanks

Fred

I won't put the whole door through, just the glued up raised panel.

[Karl Brogger]

When I cut out panels I try and not use any rips more than 5", or less than 3". If I need a 12" wide panel, I'd usually rip my pieces at 4-1/16" just a bit strong. I set my jointer for the glue joint to take just enough off to remove the saw marks. I try to get the panel close to size before glue up. Allows me to pick and choose which boards I'll use for each panel to maximize material usuage.

I cut the pieces 1" longer than I need the panel.

How are you planning on sanding the doors? I don't worry about snipe at all with the panels as get them to thickness with a widebelt after planing them down.
Even without it, I think I'd still just belt sand out any snipe prior to assembly instead of trying to cut around it. The front side won't be much because of the cove, backside not a big deal either.

[johnny means]

I would mill all my lumber to the finished thiickness first. Cutting your 24" rails to length plus 3" adds 11% to your waste. Rip to approximate width then plane rails and stiles to finished width( this gives you consistency). I would than mill all my rail profiles. Then I would cut to length. This creates the best possible yield.

[Richard McComas]

In my opinion ruff cut to length before milling. It's harder to flatten a 7' board and if there's much of a bow or twist you could loose to much in thickness to the point it's to thin for your doors.

[Bob Johnson2]

Karl, I'll be belt sanding the doors so I'm not real concerned with snipe, don't get much if any if I'm careful.

I agree that flattening then planing the full bds would give me the least waste, just hard to do with a 6" x 42" jointer. Now if I had a 10"...

[David DeCristoforo]

We always cut to "rough length" (net = 1"), glue up any needed widths, joint, plane to final thickness and then cut to finished size. Also, always cut from the longest lengths to the shortest. Allowing extra length to accommodate snipe is a "bad" idea, simply because if you are getting snipe, it's because your machines are not adjusted properly, something that should be dealt with before you start milling material.

[Jim Riseborough]

I am curious about putting the glue up thru the planer. Does that not raise hell with the stiles(or is it rails-anyway the horizintal pieces?

Thanks

Fred

I would not put it in a planer like that, it will tear out, and very dangerous in my mind.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Bob,
You've had lots of good advice so I will just add a bit. Now is the time to begin thinking about your finish. You know cherry can be really difficult to finish due to both grain direction and color matching. Trying to dye or stain one board in a panel or color stiles separate from rails is almost impossible. Be sure to keep all one color throughout a group of doors that will live near each other. Solve the color matching issue from now. Professional cabinet shops often solve it by coating with such heavy dye stuffs or pigments that the grain is lost. You will not be able nor want to do that at home.
I only over cut panels and door sides by an inch. In fact, I leave that inch until the door is assempled and glued. I cut the excess last. That makes sure the vertical member is never shorter than the horizontal member.
fmr

[Bob Johnson2]

David
Good tip on cutting from longest to shortest, I'll remember it.

Faust
I'm going to go natural on these, no coloring. Did my bath as such and we love the color as is.

[Fred Belknap]

I just did my kitchen last spring. Made the doors out of rough cherry. One suggestion that hasn't come up is to use space ball on the raised panels. Do the doors in groups by size. Check the size carefully when using cope and stick bits to end up with the right size, I sanded to 220 grit. Don't worry to much about the coloring as it will change over time. Try to use the straightest grain for rails and stiles. I did 24 doors including one at 90° for the lazy susan. Good luck. Hey don't use stain as cherry is good with clear finish, I used lacquer with shellac for sealer.
Fred

[J.R. Rutter]

In my small cab door production shop, we start by sorting through the lumber to allocate boards for panels or rails/stiles. Keeping a tally of the total width needed for panels of a given height, as well as any vertical matching helps. Make and labels several piles as needed. In some cases, a plank gets split so that the straighter grain goes for R&S parts while the flatter grain goes for panels. As long as you try to match shades as best you can, you should be fine with cherry since as it ages it gets closer in color.

At this point you can either crosscut or rip to rough dimension. I think that rip first gives better yield. We rough rip 1/8" over width, crosscutting bowed boards first to get better yield. Before I had a straight line rip, I eyeballed this on the table saw, wasting a little more on width to be sure to get good R&S parts. After this, it is just a matter of crosscutting and milling parts. Experiment with a set of parts to see what look you prefer for orientation of frame parts. I like to keep the long straight grain on the outside. But just being consistent further unifies the whole kitchen.