Rail and Stile cabinet doors - glue or no glue on the 1/4" MDF panel???

[Justin Pfenning]

I'm about to jump into my first cabinet build for a small kitchen. I feel like I have a pretty good handle on the process I plan to use, and my kitchen design is nearly complete. The cabinets will be frameless with rail and stile doors and drawer fronts. The cabinets boxes will be built from prefinished plywood, and the doors and drawers will built from beech (rails and stiles) and mdf (panels). Once built, the doors will be sprayed a paint color yet to be determined. I will likely have a painter friend of mine spray them with some Sherwin Williams product. I'm flip flopping between two processes on door construction:

1- cut the rails and stiles deeper and use spaceballs around the outside of the panel, leaving the panel "float" in the rails and stiles.

2- cut the rails and stiles with just a small amount of depth clearance and glue the MDF panel in place so it cannot move.

I was all set to build them to the option 1 construction style, but now I'm concerned about the panel moving and reveling an unpainted edge of the panel. What would you do?

[Steve Jenkins]

Mdf or ply panel there is no expansion concern so don’t bother with spaceballs. You can glue the panel or not.

[Patrick Kane]

I always glue my MDF/Ply panels. It shouldnt hurt anything and it prevents the panel from rattling as well as adding a ton of structure to the whole door. I like to get the fit very tight on length and width, because it self-squares the door glueup. I know my slider is going to produce a near perfectly squared panel.

[Jeff Roltgen]

+1 with Steve, though I'd encourage gluing. This will add strength and eliminate rattling. I typically cut the panels 1/16" under length and width for an approximate 1/32" gap for ease of assembly and excess glue pocket if you go overboard.

jeff

[John TenEyck]

I've done it both ways, but for the last 10 years I have glued them and have had zero issues. As said, it adds a lot of strength to the door. For paint grade work it's the only option IMO as it allows you to caulk around the perimeter w/o worry of future movement causing a crack in the paint. Who caulks? Folks who build paint grade doors.

John

[Justin Pfenning]

Thank you for clearing this up for me. I will take the suggestions of using glue, and skipping the spaceballs.

One more question. If I keep my fit from panel to rail and stile tight, apply the 1/16” clearance over all on the panel height and width, and add some glue, do I really need to caulk the perimeter?

[Jim Dwight]

Justin,

You can look at your doors to decide but I have always caulked the joint on painted doors. People do not expect to see a gap and even a well made door will have a small gap that paint will not reliably fill.

Jim

[John TenEyck]

What Jim said. It only takes a minute to go around the panel perimeter with a caulking tube set for a small bead. Press it into the gap with you finger or plastic tool, then remove the excess. The quality difference after painting is worth the little effort it takes.

John

[Paul Haus]

I think you can do it either way and not have a problem. If concerned with having a paint line show over time, you can always paint the panels prior to assembly then even if there is a slight shift you won't see any paint line.