Attaching Rail and Stile

[Roger Turnbough]

Morning all,

Here is an ISO drawing of a curio cabinet that I am working on. The dimensions of this piece are 33" long by 16" deep by about 30" tall. The bottom will sit on a base of about 4" there abouts. The top and bottom boards are 3 board glueups out of walnut about 7/8" thick. The boards are not quite quartersawn but not flatsawn either. Kind of midline between the 2.

The rails and stiles will be machined to 13/16" x 1 5/8". All panels will have 1/8" glass installed in them. And the back of the cabinet will have a mirror installed in it.

Now here is the problem. How to attach the R & S assemblies to the top and bottom. With all the glass in this, it will be pretty heavy. And there will be no way to move this piece without grabbing the 1" reveal around the top.

My biggest concern is of the top and the bottom moving during the seasonal changes being solid wood. So I would think that any solid attachment would have to be in the diagonal pieces at the front corners. And a floating type of attachment for the side pieces. But for the life of me, I cant come up with a way that will allow this, and still be sturdy enough to move the piece around.

I dont want to use Table top clips, And would like to stay with some kind of Traditional Joinery.

Any help y'all could give me would be greatly appreciated.

Roger

[Byron Trantham]

What I think you could do is drill oversized holes for the screws through the top and bottom panels so the wood can move and yet be quite strong.

[Randy Schaefer]

I built a similar piece last year. I had the stiles on the side pieces go all the way to the floor, attaching the base moulding to that. Put a dado/groove about a 1/4" below the top of the bootom rails for a web frame with a floating flat panel that is flush with the top of the web frame. At the top of the cabinet is another web frame glued into a rabbet around the top of the rail and stile assemblies. This web frame has a center divider included in it to give another place to attach the top. The top was attached through oversized screw holes.

Hope I am not to late with this.

Randy