Jessica Pierce-LaRose
06-16-2012, 12:23 PM
Sorry for the stupid question, but I've never really worked on largish casework before.
Anyway, I'm working on the tool cabinet project, and staring to fit the dividing sections of the carcase to main box. These are all fit into dados in the main carcase or the other dividers.
I know if I had a perpendicular grain situation, I'd want to pay attention to wood movement, and if anything was glued or fastened, I'd want to only glue/fasten it a bit in one area to allow one piece of wood to expand/contract along it's width and slide past the long grain of the other piece.
In this case, however, all the case pieces are made out of the same poplar. I've tried to illustrate at least an example of what I'm doing in this picture - it's not quite the layout I'm working with (and there are a few more dividers, and drawers as well to be added) but as I hope shows up in the picture (never used the texture thing in sketchup before) the grain in the dividers runs in the same direction as the main carcase pieces parallel to it. So the horizontal divider still has the grain running in the same direction as the top and bottom, the vertical divider still has the grain running in the same direction as the sides, etc.
Can I secure these along their length? I'm not sure glue is going to do too much give the lack of long grain to long grain surfaces, but if I did something like put a couple screws or nails into the edges of the horizontal divider from the outside, do I risk the piece tearing itself apart from wood movement? There's just a hair of cupping on the interior of the vertical boards to the main carcase - it's so little that I can push it in with light hand pressure, and things would work fine just letting them sit in their dadoes. I'm not even sure you'd see more than a hair of shadow if I left it as is, but I was thinking of putting a hidden fastener or two in the middle of the horizontal divider from the outside to pull this in.
234612
I know the correct answer would have been to have payed more attention to my stock prep so this didn't happen - I obviously neglected to do this, or my clamping of the tails made things a little worse, I don't know. I'd hate to start over at this point, and I'm not sure how to plane out this slight cupping of the boards with carcase assembled. I suppose I could take a shaving or two off each end of the horizontal dividers to try and make it match the slight cup to the vertical carcase boards.
I suppose sliding dovetails could help, but I don't think I really have a way to cut those given the tools I have. Part of the plan was to put a dovetailed piece in front of the shelf as was recommended to me by Karl in in my previous question about this (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?186988-Dado-tenon-or-both) and while that will add some rigidity to the cabinet, that's not going to help with the slight cupping in the middle of the exterior vertical boards.
Anyway, I'm working on the tool cabinet project, and staring to fit the dividing sections of the carcase to main box. These are all fit into dados in the main carcase or the other dividers.
I know if I had a perpendicular grain situation, I'd want to pay attention to wood movement, and if anything was glued or fastened, I'd want to only glue/fasten it a bit in one area to allow one piece of wood to expand/contract along it's width and slide past the long grain of the other piece.
In this case, however, all the case pieces are made out of the same poplar. I've tried to illustrate at least an example of what I'm doing in this picture - it's not quite the layout I'm working with (and there are a few more dividers, and drawers as well to be added) but as I hope shows up in the picture (never used the texture thing in sketchup before) the grain in the dividers runs in the same direction as the main carcase pieces parallel to it. So the horizontal divider still has the grain running in the same direction as the top and bottom, the vertical divider still has the grain running in the same direction as the sides, etc.
Can I secure these along their length? I'm not sure glue is going to do too much give the lack of long grain to long grain surfaces, but if I did something like put a couple screws or nails into the edges of the horizontal divider from the outside, do I risk the piece tearing itself apart from wood movement? There's just a hair of cupping on the interior of the vertical boards to the main carcase - it's so little that I can push it in with light hand pressure, and things would work fine just letting them sit in their dadoes. I'm not even sure you'd see more than a hair of shadow if I left it as is, but I was thinking of putting a hidden fastener or two in the middle of the horizontal divider from the outside to pull this in.
234612
I know the correct answer would have been to have payed more attention to my stock prep so this didn't happen - I obviously neglected to do this, or my clamping of the tails made things a little worse, I don't know. I'd hate to start over at this point, and I'm not sure how to plane out this slight cupping of the boards with carcase assembled. I suppose I could take a shaving or two off each end of the horizontal dividers to try and make it match the slight cup to the vertical carcase boards.
I suppose sliding dovetails could help, but I don't think I really have a way to cut those given the tools I have. Part of the plan was to put a dovetailed piece in front of the shelf as was recommended to me by Karl in in my previous question about this (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?186988-Dado-tenon-or-both) and while that will add some rigidity to the cabinet, that's not going to help with the slight cupping in the middle of the exterior vertical boards.