Sizing full overlay cabinet doors in winter

[Chris Redmond]

I'm about the purchase cabinet doors and drawer fronts for kitchen cabinets and drawer boxes that I made. The cabinets are frameless and full overlay. After reading up on reveals, I was hoping to have 1/8 total reveal between adjacent doors, flush on the bottoms and 3/16 reveal at top where the carcass meets the countertop. The doors I will be purchasing are cope and stick with a floating raised panel in cherry, and they will have a rounded outer edge. I plan to finish the cherry with Bartley's clear coat.

The question I'm struggling with is do I need to take into account the time of year when measuring and how do I do that? If I'm measuring doors to have a 1/8 reveal in the winter when the weather is dry, will I run into issues in the wetter summer months? My house has central AC and I live in the Midwest. I asked the mill I'm purchasing the doors from and they wouldn't offer any advice. Is there any general rule of thumb when making/purchasing doors in the dryer months, especially when the reveal is small and there is little room for error?

Any thoughts or advice are appreciated.

[Jamie Buxton]

Wood expand and contracts across the grain, but not with the grain. That is, the length of your door rails will not change over the seasons. That is, the overall width of your doors will change very little with the seasons.

[Dwayne Watt]

Like Jamie said...that is the purpose of having a floating panel within the cope and stick frame. There will be negligible movement of the overlay frame but plenty of lateral movement of the floating panel within. Just be sure to leave some expansion room for the floating panel.

[Greg Funk]

Only the stiles will move. Our front door has 16" worth of stiles and it moves. A cabinet door with 4" of stiles moves, but it's negligible. There are some on-line calculators that will estimate the movement of various woods but it's not worth looking up for 4".

[Robert Engel]

I've had gaps noticeably widen after installing (2 3/8" wide stiles). A lot depends on wood. Kiln dried cherry isn't going to move that much on a narrow stile.

When you say full overlay, is there a rabbit around the door, or the entire thickness? Euro adjustable hinges (https://www.cabinetparts.com/c/hinges/european-cabinet-hinges)?

[Chris Redmond]

Thanks all for the replies, that somewhat puts my mind at ease. I may check out the online calculator just for more assurance before I place the order.

Robert - the front outer edge has a rounded profile, but the back outer edge is square with no profile or rabbit. I'm using Blum 110 degree adjustable hinges.