Help.....please

[Al Willits]

I have always believed that experience is the best teacher, but at my age I think I'd like to speed it up a bit, maybe ya all can help.

I am building the doors for the storage cabinet now and routered the styles and rails, routered the raised panel and thought all was well...

Glued them up and let them sit overnight, today came out and removed the clamps and find that the square edge that would normally be to the back of the door has bowed out enough to crack, this is the grooved section that the panel slides into along the inner edge of the styles (styles run vertical right?)
Anyway, I prefit it all together and needed to tap them pretty good to get the styles and rails to fit, also the fit of the panel may have been a bit snug.

I'm thinking the panel may have been tight and with the space balls it could have caused it or the rail and styles were a bit to snug.

I did figure I may have to subtract a 1/4" to the panel cut lengths instead of 1/8", but I'm wondering how tight the rail and styles should fit?

Help......:confused:
tia

Al

[Al Willits]

Ok, after 160+ views and no replies, I figure I either have done something no woodworker ever has done or I am not explaining it very well....
I'm leaning towards the latter..:)

Anyway, what I'm trying now is to run the rails and styles though the router one more time after they get routered to the bearing, this seems to take just enough to make the fitting of the rail and style come together with out quite so much clamping pressure, in fact they go together by hand and still appear to be snug.
And I'll take about a 1/8" off the edge of the panel, as I think they were to tight also.

I've got the rails and styles done and will cut the panel tommorrow, with all the interest, I'll make sure to let me know how it goes....:D :D

Al.....hopelessly lost....but making good time.

[Dave Harker]

It sounds like you have it figured out, the grooves in your rails and stiles need to be a big larger, relative to the size of the panel edge that slides into those grooves.

Good luck, that would be frustrating.

P.S. the way I remember 'rails are horizontal, and stiles are vertical' is that "rails" reminds me of railroad rails, which of course are horizontal.

[pete collins]

i believe the panel should move just slightly ,but not slop around,in the frame without the spacers which allows the panel to expand and contract. then by using the spacers it should be snug but not so tight that it affects clamping.

[Joe Chritz]

They should press together by hand without a lot of pressure.

If you are using the spaceball brand I believe they recommend not compressing the over 50%.

I use .26 space balls and cut my panels 1/4-5/16 shy. Thickness is consistent in that I like them to slide in easily with almost no slop.

I have had the same thing happen to a door I had to clamp to close up. Mine happened a few month later though. :mad:

Joe

[J.R. Rutter]

Yeah, you've got it figured out now.

R+S should ideally go together by hand, but with no slop.

Panel should be more on the loose side than the tight side.

[Al Willits]

Great, they had been going together with a fair bit of clamping pressure and the panel was not able to move when all was clamped up, so it looks like I'm headed in the right direction.

Was trying to advoid the, to tight, to tight, o shoot, to loose, problem...:)

I did manage to get the raised part of the panel cut loose enough, but the panel is to large and will use the 1/4-5/16" gap suggested.

Thanks Dave, I always get them mixed up...:D

Looks like I'm headed in the right direction, thanks all.

Al

[John Schreiber]

P.S. the way I remember 'rails are horizontal, and stiles are vertical' is that "rails" reminds me of railroad rails, which of course are horizontal.
Thanks Dave, You've saved me from future embarrassment. I could never get that straight. Any suggestions on remembering the short vs. the long stretchers of a table or cabinet?