finishing question about oak cabinet doors

[Randall J Cox]

A question for those of you accomplished cabinet makers. I have finished making two oak cabinet doors for our kitchen for existing cabinets (that don't have doors of course). My question is about finishing sequence. I plan to stain/seal with Minwax provincial and clear coat with two coats of Minwax polyurethane. Should I do all the staining before I glue together? Or glue together bare wood and then stain/seal and finish coat? Randy

353656

[John TenEyck]

There are benefits of both approaches. The greatest negative to pre-finishing the frames is you can't correct any misalignment after glue up. If I'm using plywood panels I never pre-finish. I glue them in the frame and there's no way they can shrink. Nor do I pre-finish if using solid panels in mid Winter when the RH is really low, because they will only expand. In the Summer, however, I dye and/or stain and apply one coat of finish to solid wood panels before gluing up, because they are going to shrink next Winter.

When in doubt, pre-finishing the panels is never a bad thing.

John

[Justin Ludwig]

Maybe stain first, but not poly. Do that last.

Personally? I would full assemble then stain and finish.

[Lee Schierer]

I would stain the panels and the inside edges of your rails and stiles before assembly. Do the poly after assembly and glue clean up.

[Jim Becker]

^^ What Lee said...

[Wayne Lomman]

At least stain the edges of the panels as far as the groove depth before glue up as a minimum. Leave the stiles and rails till after assembly so you can sand your joints and fit the doors if necessary. Cheers

[Robin Frierson]

I pre-finish the panels and the inside edges of the rails and styles. I even rub the panels out and wax them as it's much easier to do when they're flat and not in the frame. Any glue wipes right off with the wax surface.I always tape off any area that's going to get glued.

[Randall J Cox]

OK, I'll stain the panels and inside edges of the rails before assembly. The panels are 1/4" oak plywood, and like a rookie I didn't look at the back when I bought it at the big box store. Its not oak on both sides, its some sort of dark mahogany on the back. I lucked out though as these little doors will mount horizontally and raise up only to 90 degrees to get into the cubby holes (for letters and such) behind them. They can't stand open where you can see the backs like a regular cabinet door. Thanks for all the comments and insight. Randy