Question for you cabinet makers

[Bill Leonard]

We are about to begin construction on our waterfront retirement home in Beaufort County , SC. I plan to build our kitchen cabinets out of maple. They will be faceframe construction with raised panel doors. I am considering using curly maple for all of the raised panel as well as drawers. My question for you experienced kitchen cabinet gurus, and any one else for that matter is: Do you think I may be overpowering the effort with this much figured wood? There will be about 15 feet of lower cabinets as well as 15 ft of upper. Thanks for the input, I trust the insight available on this site.
Bill

[Pete Brown]

We are about to begin construction on our waterfront retirement home in Beaufort County , SC. I plan to build our kitchen cabinets out of maple. They will be faceframe construction with raised panel doors. I am considering using curly maple for all of the raised panel as well as drawers. My question for you experienced kitchen cabinet gurus, and any one else for that matter is: Do you think I may be overpowering the effort with this much figured wood? There will be about 15 feet of lower cabinets as well as 15 ft of upper. Thanks for the input, I trust the insight available on this site.
Bill

I am doing our cabinets with Ghost/Ambrosia Tiger Maple. We specifically decided to pick wood with good figure, but not do a lot of extra work to make it pop. Instead, it has a super blonde dewaxed shellac (Zinsser Seal-Coat) covered with a water-based poly. No oils, no dyes.

The design was also kept simple to avoid competing with the figure in the wood.

So far, it looks very nice.

If you haven't put together a project of this size with figured wood before, you're in for some interesting times. While you can easily scrape/hand-plane etc. small figured projects, you need to have good mass-production techniques for a whole kitchen. That means finding good quick ways to deal with the significant tear-out that standard jointer/planer knives produce. (constant sharpening, wetting the wood, buying spiral knives etc.)

Pete

[frank shic]

not as long as you can afford it!

[glenn bradley]

They will definitly make a statement but I don't know about overpowering; that is a matter of taste. Now for overpowering, if you're ever in SoCal, go to the Queen Mary. There is something about hundreds of feet of floor to ceiling birds-eye maple paneling running down both sides of the stateroom deck hallways that I would classify as overpowering.

[Laurie Brown]

I used oak, but I use a simple finish of clear shellac and water-based poly for a natural finish. I would use the same finish for maple, and have on some samples I made.

[Joe Chritz]

I think it will look great and someday may redo my kitchen with figured maple panels and walnut stiles/rails.

Aside from the price, Pete hit the major stumbling block you may have.

Maple likes to chip out, figure maple is horrible for it.

Hope you have a drum or widebelt sander.

Post pictures when you are done.

Joe

[Cary Swoveland]

Bill,

This is purely a matter of taste, but were it me, I'd limit the figured maple to the panels, and use straight-grained maple for the rest. I think the drawer fronts would look better if they were somewhat muted and matched the rails and stiles, limiting the emphasis to the panels.

As to finish, I concur with the recommendation for blond shellac followed with poly, but I'd start with a very light coat of boiled linseen oil, to bring out the figure a bit.

Cary

[Maurice Ungaro]

Bill,
I live here in Beaufort, SC, and a good friend of mine did all of his kitchen cabs in tiger maple - it is GORGEOUS. If you'ld care to take a look at it, let me know, and I'll arrange a time when you can see it in person, next time you're in town.

Best regards,

Maurice Ungaro
843-441-2765

[Bill Leonard]

Maurice,
Sent you a PM. Love to see it.

To the rest, thanks for the input. I'll probably go with just the panels. Never used shellac before. Wife does all the finishing and she is partial to wipe on poly. I'll pass on the collective wisdom.

[Jeff Wright]

Bill,
I live here in Beaufort, SC, and a good friend of mine did all of his kitchen cabs in tiger maple - it is GORGEOUS. If you'ld care to take a look at it, let me know, and I'll arrange a time when you can see it in person, next time you're in town.

This could be the best advise you're going to get. With that much figure, the cabinets could do a lot of shouting. I would make whatever effort was necessary to see something VERY close to what I was planning to do. In my experience, the most attractive designs were full of subtleties. And curly maple is not known for its subtlety. Just my opinion.

[Cary Swoveland]

...Never used shellac before. Wife does all the finishing and she is partial to wipe on poly...
Shellac gives a very nice, warm appearance, and is very easy to use. One can spray or pad it on, and since its solvent is alcohol, it doesn't smell. You can buy it pre-mixed, but it's cheaper to buy flakes and dissolve them in alcohol. (You can speed that up by converting the flakes to powder in a coffee grinder.) Once in liquid form, shellac's shelf-life is only about six months--another argument for buying flakes, which can be stored for years. If you use a water-based poly over, you'll need to either buy dewaxed liquid-form or dewaxed flakes, or dewaxed it yourself, by simply letting the wax settle and pouring off the liquid.

Cary

[Joe Chritz]

I'm not a huge fan of poly but wipe on done well looks very nice. The shellac should be topcoated with something more durable for cabinets. Get something like zinseer sealcoat for a first coat then finish with your choice.

A kitchen full of cabinets is a huge finish job. This would be a good time to look at a spray gun. Plus it opens up a lot of other finish options you wouldn't have otherwise. Waterbased finishes can be sprayed nearly anywhere with a little prep.

I agree with the idea of using a less "dramatic" wood for the rails/stiles. In this case less may be more.

Joe

[Jim Holman]

Depends on your countertop plans. The cabinets should have only one focal poing. top or doors in most cases. My personal preference is conservative, I might go for figured drawerfronts but doors is a bit much for me. The best kitchen I have seen in the past few years was solid cherry flat panel doors with hand carved pulls. The pulls were carved so well that the grain on the stiles and the pull matched. Still don't know how he did that.

Jim in beautiful downtown Ridgeville SC