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+-- Thread: Rail and stile design (/showthread.php?tid=7085826)
Rail and stile design - hbmcc - 08-30-2015
A photo in Fine Wood Working No. 248 (August, 2015) had me going back to the Readers Gallery, page 75, because something was odd. Finally. The cabinet door rails were full width and the styles butted into them. Normal (universal) procedure is to have full length styles.
Esthetic reasons aside, my question was why have (want) the styles full length? In the normal, the hinge and lock boards appear to determine what is full length. Do they actually define the styles? But what about bridal joints for door frames? Must the rail be a tenon board?
So, after a few twists, I bring the question to the forum. Is there an engineering reason for standard door framing? Can the whimsical geometric cabinet door, with full width rails, do just as well?
Re: Rail and stile design - tim_leo - 08-30-2015
Yes, there are good engineering reasons for the vertcal stiles to be full height of the doors, and the horizontal rails to connect the stiles together.
Re: Rail and stile design - cputnam - 08-31-2015
.... and what are those good reason - I'm curious?
Re: Rail and stile design - Bill_Houghton - 08-31-2015
One reason that occurs to me for doors mounted with butt hinges is that, if the vertical members shrink, the horizontal members will stick out past the vertical slightly and, potentially, bind.
The issue would be less important with knife hinges, although the opposite problem might exist: vertical members swell out past the horizontal ones, where the hinges are mounted, and bind.
Re: Rail and stile design - JGrout - 08-31-2015
When the stile expands/contracts if full length it all moves the same.
Not so with the rail is across the full width it acts more like a breadboard on a table top without the great expansion issue a full solid top would give due to the floating panels. things do not move the same and it looks funny
There is also the issue of twist a shorter (inside the sitles) rail is stiffer holding the door in a more stable (neutral) position
Re: Rail and stile design - cputnam - 08-31-2015
Bill & Joe,
Thank you!
Re: Rail and stile design - hbmcc - 09-01-2015
cputnam said:
Bill & Joe,
Thank you!
Those also were my main assumptions for standard design logic. However, I don't think the expansion issue will be a major concern. It is a frame and panel door, of maybe 12 to 15 inches width and 2 inch frames. Think of it as a typical Frame and Panel upper kitchen cabinet door.
The breadboard look was so odd once I did figure out the difference in the door construction. But, I cheer on counter esthetic, when not poor engineering. Or, don't challenge the proverbial form follows function.
Re: Rail and stile design - Bibliophile 13 - 09-01-2015
There's also the (somewhat minor) aesthetic tendency to try to hid end-grain. With full-length stiles on a big door, end-grain is visible only on the top and bottom of the door--i.e. not very visible at all.
From a shrinkage perspective, the long stiles make perfect sense. If you made full-width rails and mortised the hinges into the stiles, the stiles might shrink back from the rails, leaving the rails proud. In extreme situations, the end grain of the rails might hit the door frame and prevent the door from closing fully. In practice, that's probably not very common, but it could happen to a big door if atmospheric changes were drastic enough.