long, narrow rail and stile pantry doors

[Ed Wilks]

I am planning on building two tall, narrow pantry doors out of maple. Each door's dimensions will be roughly 13.25"W x 74"H x 3/4" with extra ~2" wide rails 10" from each end to create space for decorative aluminum screen panels at the top and bottom of the doors. I plan on using 1/2" plywood for the center panels which will end up being about 54" tall.

As I started to lay out the boards I bought 6+ months ago, I noticed the boards had bowed more than I expected (they were inside so they are acclimated to the environment) so I became really concerned about the stability of the doors.

Is my answer to go back to the lumber store and buy quarter sawn boards?

Thank you!

[Kent A Bathurst]

Wouldn't think you'd need to, assuming you can still have enough to joint + plane them flat. They did what you wanted them to do - acclimate and get the movement out of its system. One thing I would suggest, though....joint the barest minimum to get them flat, and take maybe one pass through the planer, and rip to 1/4 - 1/2" oversize, then give them another couple days, to guard against the stress relieved in machining. Then joint, plane and rip to final dimensions, and move right along to assembly [v. waiting till next weekend].

Since you are using plywood, you can glue [and/or pin if you like] the panels......keep them clamped flat [as well as clamping the joints together] until the glue dries.....the glue and the ply will help a lot in keeping them flat.

[J.R. Rutter]

Just remember that bowing along the length has everything to do with moisture differential between the face and the back. If you store lumber with one face exposed to air and the other laying on something, the exposed face with gain/lose moisture much faster than the other face. This is longitudinal expansion, so quartersawn wood will experience this almost as much as flatsawn. In my cabinet door shop, we select the flattest stock for the tallest doors (as you would hope expect). Even overnight, the top stile in a stack will bow according to the relative humidity / wood moisture content differential while the rest will stay flat. At this time of year, the air is likely to be very dry compared to the wood.

As a practical matter, we mill and assemble rails and stiles with the crown up so that at least the corners will register properly on the cabinet faces.

[HANK METZ]

3/4" thick stock is too thin for such a working length (74"). Were it me I'd use at least 5/4 thick stock; perhaps you can face glue the opposites that bowed on you & plane it down.

- Beachside Hank

[Tony Joyce]

JR's advice is on the money, my experiences have proven(at least to me) that this is very good advice.

Tony

[Steve Griffin]

And put your worst stiles on the hinge side. For your tall doors, you'll have 3 or 4 hinges which will make the hinge side stiles behave.

I agree with JR to about crown up. Especially where two doors meet, you don't want one crown up and one crown down.

On a bigger job, I lay all stile/rail material on edge on the workbench and sort the best stuff for tall or wide doors.

I wouldn't hesitate to purchase more wood, if you can't mill out most the crown and it doesn't look good to your eyes.

[Ed Wilks]

Thanks very much for the advice everyone. I have the boards standing up against the pantry. We'll see how they look in the morning and go from there.

Thanks again!