Raised Panel Door help

[Dave Jurek]

Hopefully I can accurately describe this…
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I’m attempting making my first set of raised panel doors.* I’ve got my rails and stiles cut, and I’ve finished off the raised panel piece cutting it 1/8” short of the rail tenon-to-tenon length (and similarly 1/8” short of the rail length) as a first pass.* When I try a dry fit up, I’m noticing that I can’t fit the panel completely into the dados around the rails and stiles.
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My dado depth is 3/8” and my width is 1/4”.* Fairly standard, yes?* I’m using the Rockler round stile and rail router bit set (item# 92013) in tandem with their cove horizontal raised panel bit (item# 21522). The issue I’m having is the tongue of the raised panel is barely 1/4”, more like 3/16” of flatness before the shoulder of the cove starts rising. Make sense?* The rising of the cove shape only allows so much of the tongue to fit into the dado.* I would have expected enough flat tongue on the piece that I could bottom the panel out into the 3/8” deep dado.* Not the case.
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I do plan to use space balls and I understand I need to cut the panel 5/32” short on each side to allow for movement however, this is barely over 1/8” and I am concerned that if there is any expansion of the panel, it will push the glued joints apart.*
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I’ve talked to Rockler tech support and their response is cut the width of the tongue shallower so I can get a better fit.* That sounds absurd to me.* They also said they’ve never heard of this issue.* So either I’m doing something wrong, or I have a poorly designed raised panel bit.
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Can any of you offer advice?

[Frank Drew]

Dave,

In my experience, some raised panel cutters leave the "tongue" portion of the panel a bit shorter than I'd like, as you've noted. But 3/16-1/4" into the groove should be sufficient except with a really wide panel; if you're still concerned, you could run your panels through again, taking just a hair more off to allow them to seat a bit further into the grooves.

[Jeff Monson]

Hopefully I can accurately describe this…
*
The rising of the cove shape only allows so much of the tongue to fit into the dado.* I would have expected enough flat tongue on the piece that I could bottom the panel out into the 3/8” deep dado.* Not the case.


Dave what is the panel material thickness? I'd assume 3/4", your panel raising bit has to be for 3/4" material, not for 5/8" material or you will run into problems. Also when I raise 3/4" panels, I have to use a back cutter to get the tounge to a proper thickness which allows it to fit deeply into the dado. If this cutter is good for 3/4" material then I will assume you need a backcutter to reduce the tounge thickness.

[Dave Jurek]

First, thanks very much for the responses. I've heard a couple folks ask about panel thickness. I am having trouble understanding why that matters as dont you set the width of the tongue by the amount you raise the bit on the router table. To answer your question, I'm using 3/4" rails and stiles and a 1/2" thick panel. I routed the panel to raise it so that I ended up with a 1/4" tongue to fit in the 1/4" wide dado. Here's a link to the router bit.

http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=5026&filter=Raised%20panel%20bit

thanks again.

[Chip Lindley]

Hi Dave. Only way to increase the tongue depth of panels is by using a smaller-diameter rub bearing on the cutter. Better yet, remove the bearing and cut the panel edge along a fence. This will work if cutting straight panels with no arches to give you almost 3/16" of extra tongue on your panel edges.

~~Chip~~

[Dave Jurek]

Thanks Chip. After looking at the bit, I can gain another 1/8" by removing the bearing. That's what I'm going to do. Looks like a Rockler design mistake.

Thanks to all that responded.

[Frank Drew]

... to fit in the 1/4" wide dado. 1/4" wide groove. A dado is a groove that goes across the grain, if it's with the grain you simply call it a groove, as you'd make in stiles and rails to accept a panel.