# Help a newbie building shaker style door



## rivc1982 (Jan 12, 2014)

I am taking my first step into wood working and going to try my hand at making new cabinet doors and face frames for the kitchen.

My main issues are concerning the doors. After reading lots of information (maybe too much) on the internet I believe I have the basics of building the doors but as I am planning the final details I have a few questions I hope some of you can help me with.

The doors will require roughly a 16-19 inch wide panel insert that will be about 1/4 inch thick. The wood I am working with from my local woodcraft store is 1 inch thick and at most 12 inches long. I believe the appropriate method would be to rip two boards of equal width, plane them to 1/4 inch thickness and then simply just glue them together? Is a 1/4 inch panel too thin for a wide panel glue up? If not is there anything I should look out for?

Anyone have a good method to resaw the 1 inch thick boards without a bandsaw? I would like to be able to get at least two 1/4 panels out of the 1 inch thick board. The only thing that comes to mind is cutting both edges of the board down the middle on the table saw and then finishing the split with a hand saw. But that seems a bit dangerous to me with having the table saw blade at full height, no?

Will glue suffice to hold together the stiles and rails or should another method be performed?

I also read that the panel insert should not be fully glued to the stiles or rails to allow for movement. A small dab of glue at the center is suppose to be suffice to keep it centered. Is this good practice?

I have many questions but these are the ones I am currently stuck at. Can't wait to get started!

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

- Chris


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## rivc1982 (Jan 12, 2014)

Please note I am using a router bit to cut the tongue and grooves for the stiles and rails.


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

I personally would not use solid wood 1/4 inch thick, I don't think you will be happy with it. Why not just use 1/4 inch plywood? It would be way more stable.


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## epicfail48 (Mar 27, 2014)

I'm with jim, past a certain point in thickness wood doesn't like staying straight. I don't like the stuff much, but for larger, thinner panels plywood is magic. Avoids the messy glueup too. 

As far as resawing goes, you can do it on a table saw just fine, provided you aren't an idiot about it. A tall axillary fence is a good idea, and my personal rule of thumb is never cut more than halfway through the piece, for resawing at least. Keeps the pieces from getting trapped between the blade and fence and subsequently escaping at high velocity. A zero clearance insert is also recommended.

Wood glue will stick bloody near anything together, wood wise. It'll do fine for the rails and stiles. 

Panel shouldn't be glued all around for solid wood, you were told correctly. The panel also shouldn't be perfectly sizes to the inset for solid wood. The wood needs room to expand and contract with humidity changes, so the general advise ive seen is a small dab at top and bottom to keep the panel from rattling. Plywood, being more dimensionally stable, can be glued in all the way


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

In gluing together a 1/4" thick panel the glue surface is only 1/4" wide and they often come unglued under perfect conditions. On a door panel often a little glue gets to the panel and glues the panel in a little. Then some amount of the finish gets in the groove and further sticks the panel in. As time goes by the panel will shrink and if glued in the panel is under stress to split. Even if the glue joint holds together the panel will split elsewhere. On raised panels, the panel is 5/8" to 3/4" thick and there is enough strength in the board to break loose the little bit of finish or glue that is holding the panel and it will shrink on it's own and be fine. A solid wood door panel needs to be loose enough the wood can shrink. It doesn't happen as often but a door panel can also swell up wider than the door rail. When this happens it pushes the door frame apart. Therefore you make the panel 1/8" to 3/16" smaller in width than the rail is long to allow air space. The panel still needs loose but nobody wants a door that the panels rattle. One option is to use space balls on each side of the panel. They are rubber balls which fills the void between. I prefer to size the panel to where there is just a little friction between the panel and frame. In your case where you are using flat panels you could use plywood for the panels. Plywood eliminates the problem of wood movement and being plywood you can glue the panel into the frame. This would not only eliminate the rattle problem it also adds strength to the door frame.

Almost forgot the faceframe. The faceframe can be put together many different ways. The joints could be doweled together. They could also be mortised and tenoned. A lot of them are just butt jointed together and are put together with Kreg Screws. I have a pneumatic nail gun that shoots corrugated fasteners I nail them together from the back. I think the best quality would be dowels. It's time consuming but makes a furniture quality joint. The mortise and tenon is pretty good but the frame is so thin the tenons are thin too and tend to break off.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*Watch that plywood ...*



BigJim said:


> I personally would not use solid wood 1/4 inch thick, I don't think you will be happy with it. Why not just use 1/4 inch plywood? It would be way more stable.


I have not had great experience with staining plywood to match the hardwood frames in Quatersawn Oak. The Oak plywood veneer is so thin and the grain is so wild it didn't stain evenly. The glue is so close to the veneer it doesn't penetrate well.

Other species of plywood, Maple or Cherry may work better, I donno?

Using 1/4" solid wood panels made from glued up pieces is not going to be an easy build. So plywood may be your best solution, but I would test out the stain just to be sure. :yes:


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

It's pretty common for plywood to stain a little different color than solid wood. With dyes and toners you can compensate for the difference.


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## rivc1982 (Jan 12, 2014)

Thank you all for the input. Learning a lot from this forum already. :thumbsup:Never knew about the rubber space balls. Thanks Steve.



BigJim said:


> I personally would not use solid wood 1/4 inch thick, I don't think you will be happy with it. Why not just use 1/4 inch plywood? It would be way more stable.


I would prefer not to use solid wood panels just for the reason of warping and splitting at the glue joints of such a thin piece. But the issue is that I am using sapele wood for the rails, stiles and face frame and would like the panel insert to be sapele. Is the standard method to use plywood and put veneer on in situations like this?


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## FrankC (Aug 24, 2012)

Have you considered raised panels, that would give you 3 times the edge surface for your glue up using 3/4" material.

Sorry, missed shaker style.


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## rivc1982 (Jan 12, 2014)

FrankC said:


> Have you considered raised panels, that would give you 3 times the edge surface for your glue up using 3/4" material.
> 
> Sorry, missed shaker style.


Wifey wants flat panel look...

Fortunately I found a place to order 1/4in A1 sapele plywood in wide enough sheets to fit. Now I can stress less about them.

Thanks for the help!


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

rivc1982 said:


> Thank you all for the input. Learning a lot from this forum already. :thumbsup:Never knew about the rubber space balls. Thanks Steve.
> 
> 
> 
> I would prefer not to use solid wood panels just for the reason of warping and splitting at the glue joints of such a thin piece. But the issue is that I am using sapele wood for the rails, stiles and face frame and would like the panel insert to be sapele. Is the standard method to use plywood and put veneer on in situations like this?


Why not veneer some 1/4 inch plywood so you will have the same type of wood. There may be a supplier of plywood in that species, do a search to see.

Steve, I thought I was the only one with a corrugated fastner gun.


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## MT Stringer (Jul 21, 2009)

> The doors will require roughly a 16-19 inch wide panel insert that will be about 1/4 inch thick. The wood I am working with from my local woodcraft store is 1 inch thick and at most 12 inches long.


Do you have any hardwood dealers in your area to buy from? Otherwise, you will be paying two-three times to going rate for wood you buy from them.

How are you going to get a 20-30 inch stile out of a 12 in long piece? Just asking.

You said you have watched a lot on the internet. Have you checked out Kris Reynolds Custom Cabinets on You Tube? His videos are easy to watch with no rambling or BS. I used his basic workflow to build the cabinets for our kitchen, mom's kitchen , bro n lawz kitchen and a wet bar for our friends.


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## rivc1982 (Jan 12, 2014)

BigJim said:


> Why not veneer some 1/4 inch plywood so you will have the same type of wood. There may be a supplier of plywood in that species, do a search to see.
> 
> Steve, I thought I was the only one with a corrugated fastner gun.


I ordered the plywood pre-veneered to save myself the work of learning another task.



MT Stringer said:


> Do you have any hardwood dealers in your area to buy from? Otherwise, you will be paying two-three times to going rate for wood you buy from them.
> 
> How are you going to get a 20-30 inch stile out of a 12 in long piece? Just asking.
> 
> You said you have watched a lot on the internet. Have you checked out Kris Reynolds Custom Cabinets on You Tube? His videos are easy to watch with no rambling or BS. I used his basic workflow to build the cabinets for our kitchen, mom's kitchen , bro n lawz kitchen and a wet bar for our friends.


My apologies, I meant 1/4 in thick and 12 inches wide. The board lengths are about 8ft. Still getting used to using the terminology. I have a local woodcraft store that sells hardwood.

I have not seen that video series but I will definitely be watching them later today. I noticed he used a drum sander in the first video to smooth the wood. I don't have one of those. Would an orbital suffice and if so what grit for that stage?


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## igster (Oct 31, 2013)

I'm re-doing my kitchen cabinets, and am doing shaker doors. I am using HD 1x6 white pine boards, 8 ft long, ripped down the middle for the rails & stiles, and 1/4inch 2x4 hardwood ply panels. I route out a 1/4inch groove down the middle of all pieces and cut out a 1/4inch tenon on the stile ends, which get inserted into the groove in the rails. The rails and stiles get glued together. I cut the panel a1/4inch shy of the inside dimensions, slip it into the groove before glueing up the final piece. The panel is not glued. There are quite a few good videos of tge process on YouTube - search "10$ shaker door" .


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## Steve Neul (Sep 2, 2011)

BigJim said:


> Why not veneer some 1/4 inch plywood so you will have the same type of wood. There may be a supplier of plywood in that species, do a search to see.
> 
> Steve, I thought I was the only one with a corrugated fastner gun.


Yea when I got in the business everyone kept sending me around the shop for a wood stretcher so I had to buy one. :laughing:


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## Ninefingers (Nov 19, 2012)

I'm building a crib which will contain several shaker panels. My approach is to make up solid panels planing them to 1/2" thick, and use a raised panel bit to get the edges to the thickness needed to insert into the frame. The raised portion of the panel will be to the back, leaving the flat portion showing to the front. Thicker and solid wood panels, so I have the strength to hold their shape better and to stain up more evenly. They look quite good.


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