Plywood kitchen cabinet doors

[Bill Dufour]

I need to make a cabinet door to match the existing painted cabinets in my kitchen they appear to be plywood with a simple round over lip. But I have seen similar vintage doors in the trash and they may be laminated staves with veneer.
My question is how flat will 5/8 plywood stay over the years. How about the exposed edges just lots of filler and sanding?
Bill D

[Mel Fulks]

When they were widely used most were just pretty cheap plywood, and the plywood edge usually could be easily seen after painting.

[Adam Herman]

i have ply doors on cabinets, they have stayed quite flat. maple ply with iron on edging. finished with spar varnish.

[Ole Anderson]

Problem with plywood doors, is that you are stuck with a boring square edge unless you go with solid edge banding. No fancy ogees. Ok for my shop. not for the kitchen.

[Lee Schierer]

Years ago, I made several doors for the upper cabinets for my mother in law's kitchen. I used birch plywood which is what the lower cabinet doors were. I used 3/4" ply and rounded the edges with a router and cut a rabbet to match the original cabinet doors. They stayed flat for the 20 years or so that they were used. Be sure to start with flat ply wood and apply finish equally to both sides.

[Jim Dwight]

If they are old they may be plywood. If they are newer they are probably mdf. Mdf is nasty to cut and sand but it stays flat.

[Bill Dufour]

I should have said the cabinets are original to the house, 1949, so no MDF. One side may be newer since they do not quite match but the same vintage.
Bill

[Jamie Buxton]

Can you buy 5/8 hardwood-face plywood any more? I don't ever see it in the lumberyards.

[Jim Becker]

You can always embed or surface mount some 1/8" steel in the back of the doors if you feel concerned about them warping. I used this method for the upper (very tall) doors for my buffet/hutch project this past year for additional stability.

[Mike Manning]

You can always embed or surface mount some 1/8" steel in the back of the doors if you feel concerned about them warping. I used this method for the upper (very tall) doors for my buffet/hutch project this past year for additional stability.

Jim,
Can you provide a pic of what you did?
Thanks,
Mike

[jack duren]

You can always embed or surface mount some 1/8" steel in the back of the doors if you feel concerned about them warping. I used this method for the upper (very tall) doors for my buffet/hutch project this past year for additional stability.

34years as a cabinet maker and have never used steel in the back of my pantry doors. I guess I learn something new everyday...

[Jim Becker]

34years as a cabinet maker and have never used steel in the back of my pantry doors. I guess I learn something new everyday...

It wouldn't likely past muster for a lot of pro work like you do, but for those of us on a budget and having a large door that suddenly wants to "not be flat", it can save the project for a minimal investment. One of the doors on the hutch of the project I mentioned...after construction and fitting of the beaded trim, and after finishing...decided to not want to be flat anymore. A piece of steel, a little drilling and some pan-head screws fixed it permanently. I did both doors so they would remain identical and as a hedge in case the other one decided to increase my four letter word vocabulary. The bottom line is that it worked to fix the issue without me having to rebuild the offending door. If you think about it, it's very similar to the benefit that "old time" hinges that stretched across multiple board doors, but hidden inside of the case unless the door is opened.

----

Mike...poor photo, but you can get the idea of what i did to fix the issue I just described. This is surface mounted, but had the issue appeared earlier in the build, I would have considered routing things out so it was flush and filled any gaps. But it's not visible to anyone anyway since the door is never open except to get some special serving dish or something out.

375146

[Andrew Seemann]

In 1949, there were still material shortages from the war coupled with a building boom, so they probably used whatever they could get (my aunt's house from '49 ended up being framed with green lumber and has been a nightmare ever since) For cabinet doors from that time, I've seen regular plywood, plus solid wood core. The solid wood core seems to be the most stable, probably because they tended to be made with stable wood.

The type of wood for the plywood core will probably influence flatness the most (along with your seasonal humidity changes). More stable cores like fir and poplar will make a more stable door, birch in Baltic Birch will be less so, and yellow pine and some cheap imported plywood even less so. Number of plies may help, but more plies of an unstable wood is still unstable. If you can hide the extra 1/8 inch, 3/4 fir core plywood (like the made-in-USA Columbia stuff) would probably work great.

[Rick Alexander]

with the quality of todays plywood I don't know if I would trust 3/4 plywood even. I think I might would replace all of the doors with R&S and ply panels and be done with it. Pretty darn quick to do and you don't have to use expensive solid wood - poplar will do.

[Ole Anderson]

Needing to make some replacement office cabinet doors for church, 16"x76", my local cabinet plywood supplier recommended 3/4" veneered MDF, and recommended against plywood. Special order, $80 per sheet. Much more stable and open plies are not a problem. Didn't even ask if they were available in other thicknesses.

[jack duren]

with the quality of todays plywood I don't know if I would trust 3/4 plywood even. I think I might would replace all of the doors with R&S and ply panels and be done with it. Pretty darn quick to do and you don't have to use expensive solid wood - poplar will do.

There is still good ply out there....

[jim mills]

There is still good ply out there....


Where? What?

[jack duren]

European plys. Use a lot of this with gloss...

[Jim Andrew]

Why not just make new doors for the old cabinets, as well as the new ones, and they will all match perfectly. I built cabinets in the '70's and used plywood doors, but with all the voids did not round the edges. Used birch ply, stained and finished.

[jim mills]

Combi-core. The outer core layer of MDF makes for a smooth veneer layer. Agree, nice stuff, but not always stable IME, and HEAVY as hell!

[jack duren]

Good for hotels,banks ,etc with a lot of exterior windows for natural light.

Nothing is guaranteed..We do the best we can with whats available...Adjustable hinges took a lot of hair pulling out....