Need some reassurance please.

[Sam Murdoch]

I am setting into a project of making a huge pile of cabinet doors. These were to be maple but are now red birch.
My supplier could not source 5/4 red birch in sufficient quantity so I ended up with 4/4 milled to 13/16"

FOR THE FIRST TIME in my long career as a cabinet maker/furniture builder I am faced with needing to build cabinet doors without the option of flat jointing all my stock. The 13/16" stock I have will barely allow one pas over the jointer before it is too thin.

NOW - I have some very nice birch here but naturally some of it has more shape than is suitable for door construction. OF COURSE I will cull and select to optimize yield and prioritize straight sections but invariably (and here I need the reassurance) I will end up with some doors that are not dead nuts flat. Many in the 15" X 38" tall range (others shorter and others taller). I really hate to need to depend on the Blum hinges to pull these into submission. Should not need more than 2 hinges anyway for that size door.

Assuming that I manage my stock well - should I be concerned about the inevitable slight wobble? There will NOT be any catches on these doors and adding them is not an option. Is a door that wobbles a slight bit on a flat table top likely to cause trouble when hung?

Thank you for chiming in. Please be nice.:rolleyes:

[glenn bradley]

Depends on the quality expectation at the installation site. A lot of kitchens get built with whatever board comes off the stack next, parts get forced into position with pneumatic clamps and the resulting doors get wide belt sanded to bring the parts into a common plane. A nice thick coat of finish and most folks don't know the difference. If this is a mass produced project and 'you get what you get' is OK, I would forge ahead. There may be the odd door that gets scrapped.

P.s. I would order appropriate stock and provide your usual level of work. I do understand that sometimes time commitments mean compromise.

[Dave Zellers]

Are they inset? Lipped? They will hang fine but the twist will get transferred to the other side. A lipped or overlay door will be less trouble than an inset door.

I'm surprised you didn't order the 4/4 in the rough and mill it yourself.

[andy bessette]

If these doors are going on your shop cabinets they'll be fine. If for a customer, I would not risk my reputation for the sake of some inferior materials.

[Sam Murdoch]

Full overlay doors, 4-1/2" wide rails and stiles. The material is excellent - really, the best I could buy and from a very excellent source who culled out for me as he was processing - but it is wood. I am just needing to be very selective as I organize my parts. I do mean a slight wobble OR I will not even think of building the door with those parts, let alone hanging the door.

I did not buy rough stock because it would not have gained me much advantage and would have added likely a hundred hours to the job. What I should have done is specified 1RE and just skim plane the 2 surfaces. Here I am though. I won't compromise the job - just asking if my typical flat jointing of every part borders on excessive.

[Frederick Skelly]

Sam,
I'm only a hobbyist. I am also a customer who expects what I paid for. I don't think flat joining is excessive if that is how you ensure a quality product.

IMO, if these folks paid full fare assuming your usual quality work, they should get flat doors with no wobble - because that's what they are being billed for. If I were your customer, I'd appreciate a "hey, there may be a bit of wobble and I propose to discount the price accordingly" conversation. That said, wood moves, so they could end up with a slight wobble after they are hung, regardless. I don't know.

My Mom's cabinet doors have a slight wobble and they work just fine. But she didnt pay for custom work either.

Good luck.
Fred

[Dave Zellers]

OK. I'm willing to give you the reassurance you seek.

Tiny wobble on a couple of overlay doors should be not a deal breaker. Go forth. :)

[Martin Wasner]

I am setting into a project of making a huge pile of cabinet doors. These were to be maple but are now red birch.
My supplier could not source 5/4 red birch in sufficient quantity so I ended up with 4/4 milled to 13/16"

FOR THE FIRST TIME in my long career as a cabinet maker/furniture builder I am faced with needing to build cabinet doors without the option of flat jointing all my stock. The 13/16" stock I have will barely allow one pas over the jointer before it is too thin.

NOW - I have some very nice birch here but naturally some of it has more shape than is suitable for door construction. OF COURSE I will cull and select to optimize yield and prioritize straight sections but invariably (and here I need the reassurance) I will end up with some doors that are not dead nuts flat. Many in the 15" X 38" tall range (others shorter and others taller). I really hate to need to depend on the Blum hinges to pull these into submission. Should not need more than 2 hinges anyway for that size door.

Assuming that I manage my stock well - should I be concerned about the inevitable slight wobble? There will NOT be any catches on these doors and adding them is not an option. Is a door that wobbles a slight bit on a flat table top likely to cause trouble when hung?

Thank you for chiming in. Please be nice.:rolleyes:

I buy almost all of my material within a 1/16 of finished thickness, I don't bother face jointing very often. I bang a lot of mostly inset cabinets out, for people that make exponentially more money than I do. I'm not working on crappy houses.

Just sort your sticking. Straight stuff for the taller doors, crappier stuff for the shorter doors and drawer fronts. The really wacky material I put in the paneled ends where you can clamp, glue, and nail it straight.

Will face jointing yield a better product? Yep. But I'd have a rough time pitching that difference to my contractors when they find out the extra cost.

Now, if you're stuck using anything other than euro hinges on inset, you're not going to be a happy camper. Rough cutting and face/edge jointing the material straight and making the customer control the humidity within a few percent is your only option.

[Don Jarvie]

How bout running everything through a drum sander after their glued up. This would even out and minor wobble and give you a consistent thickness.

Do you have enough time to order more stock so you can work with the good stuff while you wait for more stock?

[Sam Murdoch]

OK. I'm willing to give you the reassurance you seek.

Tiny wobble on a couple of overlay doors should be not a deal breaker. Go forth. :)

SEE was that so hard ? :D Full overlay on fully adjustable Blum hinges would seem to offer some forgiveness if I don't abuse it. Just wondering what others have experienced as I have never built doors this way - pretty much always inset and always 13/16" thick for a 7/8" face frame all milled from 5/4.


How bout running everything through a drum sander after their glued up. This would even out and minor wobble and give you a consistent thickness.

Do you have enough time to order more stock so you can work with the good stuff while you wait for more stock?

I spent the day partsing out the rough stock for 30 + doors from my 50 boards. I rejected 9 boards (for now) and expect that I might need to run a few more long stiles.

Still have an order in for another 50 boards - can only take so much inventory at any given time. I will add another 10 boards to the order and request more thickness. This stock is remarkably good. Starting with 7/8" boards rather than 13/16" would give me quite a bit of latitude to achieve perfection.

No wide belt available so good prep and set up is all I can depend on. I'm good for it.:)

More as it happens. Thanks for the replies.

[Jim Morgan]

Wouldn't that be like thickness planing a board with a twist on the bottom face? You would end up with two parallel, twisted faces.

[Sam Murdoch]

Wouldn't that be like thickness planing a board with a twist on the bottom face? You would end up with two parallel, twisted faces.

Yes - DON'T do that :). The point of this thread is that I don't have the thickness to flatten the stock - one face - on the jointer and then finish up the flattening by passing through the thickness planer. As it is I can only finish up by running my 13/16" stock through the thickness planer to 3/4" finished thickness. If the stock is not flat the doors won't be.

If I had access to a wide belt sander I could build the doors with the 13/16" stock and sand to the 3/4" finished thickness. A good wide belt will have the option to remove the platten so that you are just sanding with the drum. This hits the high spots - as the belt floats across without pressure. Still - you can't do this effectively if you have no thickness to remove. You end up with panels that are not consistently thick. Works great to flatten panels or table tops if you can remove stock to the thinnest dimension. Ideally you want to start out with nearly flat and have at least 1/8"+ to remove.

[Dave Zellers]

Not even slightly surprised to hear you are normally an inset guy. Me too. There is nothing like a door inset into a beaded frame with a perfect space on all sides.

30 doors! Oy! So this is the job where you asked about buying the hinges from Cabinetree. Did you end up buying from them? Everything go ok?

Sounds like a challenging but fun job.

[Sam Murdoch]

Not even slightly surprised to hear you are normally an inset guy. Me too. There is nothing like a NICE FLAT door inset into a beaded frame with a perfect space on all sides.

30 doors! Oy! So this is the job where you asked about buying the hinges from Cabinetree. Did you end up buying from them? Everything go ok?

Sounds like a challenging but fun job.

Yup - only 48 in the next batch - cabinets and drawer fronts too. :eek: Haven't even looked at the hinges. Time enough to get those on order. I'll put the entire order together and then send it out for bids. I won't be shy about asking for a discount.

[Dave Zellers]

"NICE FLAT"
:) Tru Dat! :)

[scott vroom]

Sam, are these raised panel doors? If so, I would think a dead flat center panel would tend to flatten slightly crooked stiles and to a lesser extent shorter rails once glued and clamped. Most of the doors doors I've made were from 13/16 S2S and not perfectly flat. Adjustable blum hinges will help, I don't recall any big issues with wobble.

Just my 2 cents worth.

[Sam Murdoch]

Sam, are these raised panel doors? If so, I would think a dead flat center panel would tend to flatten slightly crooked stiles and to a lesser extent shorter rails once glued and clamped. Most of the doors doors I've made were from 13/16 S2S and not perfectly flat. Adjustable blum hinges will help, I don't recall any big issues with wobble.

Just my 2 cents worth.

No unfortunately - simple 1/4" ply MDF veneered panels. They could actually work against me. Fortunately most panels will be 12" or less wide.

[Jerry Olexa]

Your analysis is correct but flatter is better....IMHO

[Wayne Lomman]

If you have fully adjustable hinges and you select your timber carefully, you will get away with it. However, the fact you felt the need to ask suggests that you really know the correct answer. Cheers

[Dave Sabo]

I'm scratching my head here.

Why do your doors need to be so thick ?

3/4" finished is what I encounter 99.9% of the time especially on full overlay. Is this a regional thing ?

I can see this if you were doing full beaded inset doors, but not for full overlay. The Euro box guys wouldn't think twice about using 3/4" thick doors. Nor would the national manufactures of framed cabinets.

[Sam Murdoch]

I'm scratching my head here.

Why do your doors need to be so thick ?

3/4" finished is what I encounter 99.9% of the time especially on full overlay. Is this a regional thing ?

I can see this if you were doing full beaded inset doors, but not for full overlay. The Euro box guys wouldn't think twice about using 3/4" thick doors. Nor would the national manufactures of framed cabinets.

They aren't thick - in this case. I will be making 3/4" thick doors. My typical builds are 13/16" because I start with 5/4 stock and usually by the time I'm at 13/16" the stock is flat so I stop :). I then make the face frames a 1/16" thicker so that I can flush my doors to the ff faces and still use a bumper.

Thicker indicates "custom" because of the 99.9% otherwise that you mention.

[Mel Fulks]

I'm sure it will be ok ,because you can and will look before you cut. I've always complained bitterly about having to work with any pre dressed wood.

[Martin Wasner]

They aren't thick - in this case. I will be making 3/4" thick doors. My typical builds are 13/16" because I start with 5/4 stock and usually by the time I'm at 13/16" the stock is flat so I stop :). I then make the face frames a 1/16" thicker so that I can flush my doors to the ff faces and still use a bumper.

Thicker indicates "custom" because of the 99.9% otherwise that you mention.

I'm curious why you start with 5/4. Hogging off 7/16" is a lot of effort and wood chips.

[Mel Fulks]

I was wondering about the 5/4 too. But I've seen 5/4 from bad sources that was so twisted ,bowed,and crooked ....that you would need 6/4 from same suplier.

[Sam Murdoch]

I'm curious why you start with 5/4. Hogging off 7/16" is a lot of effort and wood chips.

I order 5/4 that has been dressed 2 sides to usually about 1-1/6" +/- and with 1 edge ripped straight. This saves me lots of time and aggravation in my small shop and allows me to sort wood for projects quickly, matching color and grain if necessary. I'm still wasting stock to get to the intended thickness but I never need to compromise on flat. The lack of my SOP has me a bit nervous this time around :).

Thanks everyone for the discussion.