To glue or not to glue

[Lee Schierer]

I'm making a dresser with a bead board panel side. There will be eight 2" wide tongue and groove strips of bead board that make up the panel. They will be confined on the edges in a groove in teh frame. The panel will be 16" wide and about 30" tall. The question is should I glue these strips together to make a single panel or am I better off leaving them as separate strips. The wood is poplar and the panel will eventually be painted a solid color.

[Eric Wong]

Since the panels are only 16" wide, I don't think it will matter that much, especially if you don't use glue between the frame and the panel/strips. I would go with whatever is easiest and/or fastest, which would depend on your production method. My gut reaction is that no glue would be easier with less cleanup too.

Iif you are concerned about them rattling around a bit, you could alway put a couple brads in the back of each strip to attach it to its neighboring strip.

[Jim Becker]

Since these are small panels, relatively speaking, I'd probably glue them to keep the strips "closely associated" to each other and then install them in the frames in the normal fashion...unglued with either "space balls" or pinned in the middle to allow wood movement.