Deciding on frame dimensions

[Raymond Stanley]

I am building doors for a cheap bookcase that we already have...

How do you decide how wide a stile on a frame and panel door should be?

I heard 2.25" is a good starting place...do other people use this as a starting place. What are the range of widths that people use, and what makes them choose wider or slimmer widths? Any tips on how to decide what would look good? I could try a cardboard mockup, but I'm not sure if I could really get a feel from it with that. Am I just overthinking this?


Thanks!
-Ray

[Bill Houghton]

I like mockups - I'm not very good at drawing, and they help me see the real thing.

Some of the advice I've read involves standard proportions, like the golden rectangle, but can't now recall how to apply it to stile width.

[Glenn Madsen]

I mock up with scrap wood of similar heft and color. And generally build at 2".

But it depends on the size of the project, the scale of the panel, and the color blend with other things going on in the room.

Here's the deal. Most of my stuff is made with maple and birch, with accent pieces of cherry. At least the rail and stile pieces are. So I often will mill a lot of that stock at once, and leave it on the wood rack, available for when I get to building doors. Reminds me, I need to go get some more, and finish some for the daughter-in-law...:rolleyes:

[Alan Turner]

One way to dimension frame members is to use a ratio, with the bottom rail at 3", the top rail at 2/3 of that, or 2", and the stiles at 3/4 of the top rail, or 1-1/2". I believe that Ian Kirby writes that this is the traditional English method of determining the width of frame members. What you start with will depend on the ultimate size of the F&P construction, whether a door or panel. The heavier bottom rail tends to ground the panel nicely.

[Ron Brese]

Raymond I think you should determine what style category the book case seems to be and then look at how the doors are configured on pieces of this particular style. For example Shaker pieces would have heavier door frame members whereas other more refined styles would have smaller widths in their door frame members. There are no standard dimensions because different styles require different proportions. This is why design study is a very important aspect of furniture making. Do some research and you will benefit greatly from the work of others.

Ron

[Jeff Wright]

One way to dimension frame members is to use a ratio, with the bottom rail at 3", the top rail at 2/3 of that, or 2", and the stiles at 3/4 of the top rail, or 1-1/2". I believe that Ian Kirby writes that this is the traditional English method of determining the width of frame members. What you start with will depend on the ultimate size of the F&P construction, whether a door or panel. The heavier bottom rail tends to ground the panel nicely.

Thanks for the info Alan. As a corollary to this thread's post, when making face frames for cabinets using inset doors and drawers, what modifications to Alan's formula would one make? My concern is having stiles too wide looking, especially where two carcasses are joined. If I were to use 1.5" stiles, joining two cabs would result in a 3" wide double stile. I could reduce the width of the cab's end stiles . . . but how narrow can one make them (using Festool's Domino floating tenons to assemble the rails and stiles) without weakening the face frame? One inch . . . 1.25 inch??

[andy brown]

Hi,
As Alan wrote, in England the bottom rail is usually deeper than the top rail and stiles. In fact most doors (and wood windows, come to that) have top rail and stiles the same dimension. The relationship is not cast in stone I don't think as sliding windows have say, a 2'' stile, but a 4'' bottom rail (on the lower sash) and that might look too heavy on a cabinet door. Exterior doors might have 4'' stiles and head and a 6'' or deeper bottom rail.

Confusing.


Andy.

[Raymond Stanley]

Thanks for the great feedback, everybody. Wow there is a lot to digest here. I will probably study aspects of frame dimensions a tad bit, but really just go to building pretty quick. Being early in the learning curve, I don't want to get to caught up in design...this is something I'll definately have to develop a sense, eye, and encylopedic konwledge for. I think I have a few books to add to my Christmas list....

[andy brown]

Hi,
Just to make everything worse here's a page on Fibonacci and the Golden Section in Architecture and music etc, but it does go into stuff on furniture making and so on. I don't know how to link sites, so this is 'golden mean' into google and scroll down to 'fibonacci numbers etc and opening that you can scroll down to 'phi and furniture' in a section called 'the golden section and art'.

Probably more than you really wanted to know!
Good luck with your Christmas books.

Andy