Advice from cabinet makers, milling wood for face frames, drier than shop?

[Andy Cleland]

Hello,

I just picked up some rough sawn 4/4 Red Alder that I'm going to use for face frames for some kitchen cabinets. Purchased locally, it was transported from a warehouse about 40 miles away here in the Pacific Northwest. I don't have an expensive moisture meter, just an inexpensive one from Harbor Freight that was an impulse buy. Taking readings from wood that has been in the workspace for a couple weeks (Actually its the kitchen that the cabinets will go in), I'm getting 13-14% from every piece I can find. The new lumber either isn't registering or is coming up 6% (both at the ends and at the center of a board I cut in half), which I believe is the minimum the meter will register. Whether or not these numbers are accurate probably isn't worth the time, but I do think that I can safely assume that the new lumber is drier than it will be at equilibrium. Now, you always hear about letting lumber dry out/acclimate in your shop after being brought in from an outside storage facility. Do the same ideas go the other way, for wood that is drier than where it will be milled? I would like to start the face frames this weekend, but don't want to have to re-purchase the lumber. If it matters, I'll be using tongue and groove+glue for attaching the frames to the bases, so I imagine that might take care of a little warp.

Do cabinet shops worry about this? I imagine it would take a heck of a lot of lumber storage to keep things on hand in a high production shop for a couple of weeks or longer before working on it.

Thanks in Advance.

[Martin Wasner]

Do cabinet shops worry about this?

Nope. At least mine doesn't, and bond that I've worked have.

I'm sure if you're doing something very specialized it's a different story, but not general cabinet stuff. I don't own a moisture meter and I don't honestly know what an appropriate moisture content it's supposed to be on kiln dried lumber.

[Andy Cleland]

Thank you. Never made a face frame before, thought it might be a little more rough and tumble on this front.

[Roy Harding]

I'm a bit north of you, in the Canadian pacific northwest - the point being that I'm familiar with the climate. I often get wood which is drier than it's going to be at EMC. My lumber always sits for a couple of weeks before I mill it - that's just good practice, no matter the local climate. In the case of face frames, I wouldn't worry about - the width of the pieces is narrow enough that any expansion will be negligible. The only time I pull out a moisture meter is when I'm doing glued up panels for tables or something wide like that.

You should be fine - although letting your lumber rest (stickered) in your shop for a couple of weeks before working with it is a good idea.

Best of luck to you.

[Lee Schierer]

My experience has been that the 13-14% wood will cause more problems as it drops in moisture than the 6-7% wood will if the moisture content increases slightly. Kiln dried wood is typically about 7%.

One word of caution. My moisture meter has two settings and you have to look on a card that came with it to see which setting you should use for a particular wood as they will read differently from species to species.