Cabinet doors and pocket srews

[John Bush]

Neighbors have asked me about doors for existing old cabinets in their garage and, of course, I offered to make them. They have uppers sitting on wider lowers creating an 8" ledge and ~~ 2" trim/faceframes top and bottom and on the verticals. Each "bay" is ~40" high and ~44" wide. My plan is to divide each bay with a stile and make doors ~40"x20" using the same dimension for the door frames as the existing trim and use thin ply for the panels. They will be painted to match the many coats of white on there already. Aesthetics is not an issue, but I was wondering if using two pocket screws per joint and setting the panel (3/16s) in a dadoe would be strong enough to hold the doors up and square for the next 25 years. I usually guarantee all my free stuff for 5 minutes or five miles,but since they are neighbors------. I was just going to mill out some fir and will be 3/4"x ~2". Is that enough to hold the screws and could/should I glue the panel in?? That would solve the strenght ??? but how about expansion in an unheated garage? I usually M&T everything but the pocket screws would be much faster assuming they will hold up. Thanks, John.

[Greg Cole]

I have made some poplar rail and stile doors with a MDF beadboard panel. Rails & stiles were 2" wide & the panel was only 1/4" thick. I double screwed each joint as well as glued the joint with Gorilla Glue. Been almost 2 years and have yet to see the paint so much as crack on the joints....
Man made panels allow you to glue them in place for strength and eliminating any panel movement-rattle.
My kitchen has the above mentioned doors and matching cabinet faces, so I spent the extra time filling in the pocket holes and sanding them smooth. There are only a couple places where you can see the a little evidence of the pocket hole on the back side.
I built them as a noob, and in retro spect I wouldn't do kitchen cabinet faces with them... but they are great for face frames and cabinet boxes etc.
Fast and pretty strong.

$0.02 given.....

Greg

[Pete Brown]

If you glue and pocket screw, it shouldn't be bad. The wood is likely to fail before the screw joint.

You could also just use a tiny biscuit and avoid plugging pocket holes and then sanding them flush. The panel being glued in will provide a lot of strength to the whole door

Make sure the glued-in panel can take some abuse. Since this is a garage, I recommend 3/8 or 1/2" plywood on any lower cabinet doors. Anything less tends to get knocked in with knees, bikes etc. My house has thin panels in the utility room cabinet doors (previous owner) and most are all kicked in to some extent.

Pete

[John Bush]

Thanks guys,
That confirms what I was thinking.

[Joe Chritz]

Rabbit a chunk of 1/2" ply for the panels and glue them in place and the rail/stile joint will be a moot point all together.

Thicker plywood is stronger but even with 2" stiles your panel would only be 18" or so wide depending on overlay. You could kick through it but it would take a pretty good smack to do.

I saw a post once about making simple shaker doors on a tablesaw by using a floating tennon sorta arrangement. Something like that would work good for an arrangement like this.

Joe