Panelign Strips and how to use them?

[Tony Shea]

I am in the process of making a raised panel door, Krenov style raised panel with no bevel in the panel just a small gap all around. I've made most of this project by hand other than the grooves that will accept my panel. This is my first raised panel door and have been driving myself crazy on what to do about panel expansion.

So I just bought some panelign strips from sommerfield tools. My question is how deep of a groove go I route to accept these panelign strips as well as my rabbeted panel? I was originally just going to route them 3/8" deep to allow an 1/8" on each side of panel. But I was worried about centering the panel therefore bought the strips that are 1/4" x 1/4" x 1". Now I just can't figure out how deep this groove now needs to be. Do I want the strips compressed as I put the panel together? Man, something simple is just giving me too many headaches.

[Dave Stuve]

Hi Tony,

I've got the panalign strips too. I like them more than spaceballs, which always seem to pop out and roll away when it's inconvenient. Part of your answer lies in how humid it is right now. I'm in the PNW, the land of high humidity, so I build tight, compressing the strips down to 1/8" or so when I assemble my doors.

Here's how my math goes. Say the rectangle for the panel opening is 8" wide and my router bit cuts a 7/16 groove into each stile. That means the panel has to be 7/16*2 = 7/8" wider than the opening. Then I subtract 1/8" twice from the panel width for the compressed size of the strips, so 7/8 - 2/8 = 5/8". I cut the panel 5/8" wider than the opening. Fudge it a bit narrower if you're in a low humidity area so that you build looser, maybe make the panel 4/8" wider than the opening instead of 5/8".

If none of that made sense, draw it out carefully and the light bulb will go on and it'll make sense.


Good luck!
Dave

[david brum]

Tony,

If I'm reading your post correctly, you're planning to have 1/8" of the panel extend into the groove. That seems a little light to me. 1/4" seems safer and would probably be about right in your 3/8" deep grooves with 1/4" foam. I can't think of a reason why deeper grooves and a wider panel would be bad.

Of course, you want to leave enough room for the wood to expand in summer, especially if you're building it in a dry shop during the arid season. To give you some reassurance, you can always look up the expansion characteristics of your species of wood. If it moves a lot, make sure you leave plenty of room. Having said that, if you don't compress the foam to some extent when the wood is at it's smallest, the foam serves no purpose.