Recomendations for making a Wood Panel

[Jonathan Valderrama]

Hi guys,

I want to make a entertainment center that need a wood panel of 150 cms by 50 cms and 2 cms. I am an intermediate woodworker and not have to much experience assembling panels. I want to use a wood that is common in my country with name SAPAN. I want to ask you about the convinience to make a panel of this dimensions and any tip for doit.

Also for the DVD, PS3, and all the stuff I use metal sheets that will be inserted in the panel.

Thanks in advance.

[Mike Circo]

Creating and gluing up panels like you describe is one of the essential woodworking skills.
But first, we'd need to know what tools you have available for this project. The most important item in creating a panel is milling flat and straight edges to glue together. That is the usual job of a jointer. But without knowing what tools you have, I can't provide details.

Oh. for those of us not metric-centric, the intended size is about 60x20, 3/4 thick.

Welcome to the side, I hope we can help.

[Alan Schwabacher]

The panel you plan is quite large. Wood absorbs water from the air and swells, then releases the water to shrink, but does this in width, not in length along the growth direction. This means your design must allow wood motion without breaking.

One way to do this is to allow the entire structure to expand and contract. The other method is to use a frame and panel construction where a panel that expands and contracts is held in a frame that keeps its dimensions while allowing the panel to move. Construction methods are different for the two approaches.

[Jonathan Valderrama]

Hi guys, i am sorry for my late replay, but i have some personal problems and i am not available.


The tools that I have are a Dewalt DW616 router with a homemade table, a Dewalt planer DW677, a Dewalt D26421, a Bosch GKS190, some hand drills and tower drill, 5 stanley hand drills and other hand tools.


I am not a professional woodworker, really its a hobby for me. I make some furniture using frame and panel, the most part of the work with hand tools. Also I make a few panels but not so big.


Unfortunately I not have access to a planer.


Alan, you suggest that I make the panel with the wood grain in the 20 inches dimension?


thanks for your answers.

[Jon Middleton]

You may want to consider sheet goods. I recently finished installing a full room of mahogany raised panel wainscoting, a total of 26 panels, not counting the glue ups for the cabinets. Wood moves a lot, sheet goods don't. I was able to mill my lumber, do the glue ups, then take them to a local shop where we sanded them to thickness in a Timesaver. If you can't joint and plane, you probably can't glue up panels.

[Jonathan Valderrama]

Hi Jon, I think in use Plywood, but I dont know how give it a good border finish. I want to make it like real wood finish.

[David Eisenhauer]

Can you show us a drawing or photo of something similar to what you want to do? Where does the panel on the entertainment center go? Is it the back? This will help decide if you want a frame and panel or just use plywood. If you decide to use plywood and the edges will show, you can glue on a solid wood edge (6-8 mm thick x 18 m tall) that matches the other wood in the unit. If you have built smaller frame and panel pieces, you most likely can build a large panel if you have the space to work in. The orientation of the grain in a large panel will be decided by how you want the piece to look.

[Vince Shriver]

If you capture the ply panel in a frame (rails & stiles), the edges no longer are a concern, nor is wood movement.

[Jonathan Valderrama]

Hi, the furniture that I want to build is similar to this:291536291538291537

[Bill Orbine]

You'd want to be using plywood for a project like this as you have shown. However, I'm confused that the panel you want to make seems much more downsized compared to the furniture in the picture you provided.

[Jonathan Valderrama]

Hi Bill, I adapt the panel size to my room size. Also I use a Wood stock of 7cm (2 3/4 inches) by 4cms (1 1/2 inches) to support the panel. I don´t know if I need to use plywood with a thick greater than 3/4.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Hi Jon, I think in use Plywood, but I dont know how give it a good border finish. I want to make it like real wood finish.

I have handled this using two different methods. One of the easiest and fastest methods is to use edge banding. I used this with good effect on my mahogany computer desk.

http://www.fastcap.com/estore/pc/fastedge-peel-and-stick-edgebanding.asp

There are certain disadvantage, such as the fact that the banding is rather thin and if the edge receives a lot of abuse it will not be nearly as robust.

Another thing that I have done is to simply cut a strip of wood and glue it along the edge of the plywood. This gives me say an edge that may be 1/2" or more wide between the plywood and the rest of the world. When I do this, however, I make the wood thicker than the plywood and then I use my router with a pattern bit to make the edge the same thickness as the plywood so that there is a perfect alignment. I have also seen this last step done with a jig that allows this to be done with a special router base that allows this to be done without a pattern bit, but then you need to build a special base.

So, I use the Festool Edging plate, if you want to see how I usually do this. You could stand the board against a tall fence on a router table, but that strikes me as difficult with a large panel.

http://www.festoolusa.com/power-tool-accessories/routers/other-accessories/edging-plate-486058

This guy uses a tall fence

http://www.woodworkerssource.com/blog/tips-tricks/how-to-flush-trim-solid-wood-edge-banding-on-plywood-or-melamine-with-a-router-table/

Here is a home made jig still using a flush trim bit

http://www.woodsmithshop.com/download/409/flush-trim-jig.pdf

Those Canadian wood workers do it a slightly different way that allows the router to be upright and the board to be flat.

https://www.canadianwoodworking.com/plans-projects/flush-trim-router-jig
https://www.canadianwoodworking.com/plans-projects/heirloom-tool-cabinet

[Jonathan Valderrama]

Thank you for the great information. I think that I go with de Canadian Wood Workers Jig. I liked the Festool Edging Plate but I can find it in my country and shipping is prohibited.

You think that a stock of 3/4 is Ok for this Project?.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Thank you for the great information.

Your Welcome!



I think that I go with de Canadian Wood Workers Jig. I liked the Festool Edging Plate but I can find it in my country and shipping is prohibited

I have seen this type elsewhere, but this was the first place that I found it while quickly searching the web (and I knew that I could not explain it well).



You think that a stock of 3/4 is Ok for this Project?.

Depends on how much weight it will hold and how much support it has underneath. I have a very long shelf on my computer desk using 3/4" ply. I have two support pins on each end and then two more along the back supporting the shelf.... and it does not carry much weight.