Raised panel door

[iclark]

Another newbie question. I was talking to a long time wood worker today. He doesn't do anything anymore because of health concerns. He told me when gluing up panels for doors, or whatever, he never glued up anything wider than about 3 1/2". Even if he had some nice 8 -10" wide material, he would rip it down, and glue it back together. Is this a good practice? Is it necessary? When you glue it back together, do you flip every other board?  Thanks  Greg

The closer you can get to truly quarter-sawn, the stabler the wood panel will be. Of course, if you are not working with a wood with a lot of chatoyance or ray fleck, the QS might be a bit boring.

[fredhargis]

Another newbie question. I was talking to a long time wood worker today. He doesn't do anything anymore because of health concerns. He told me when gluing up panels for doors, or whatever, he never glued up anything wider than about 3 1/2". Even if he had some nice 8 -10" wide material, he would rip it down, and glue it back together. Is this a good practice? Is it necessary? When you glue it back together, do you flip every other board?  Thanks  Greg

You know by now that there is seldom 100% agreement on anything woodworking (along with everything else in the world). The rip and reglue question is another one that has an answer of "maybe". I will rip and resaw at times, but for me it's a judgement call looking at the grain in the end of the board. But if this piece is for show, like on a raised panel, I would never flip it over. A board that's ripped and reglued will have a nearly invisible seam...unless you flip one of them over.

[KC]

You know by now that there is seldom 100% agreement on anything woodworking (along with everything else in the world). The rip and reglue question is another one that has an answer of "maybe". I will rip and resaw at times, but for me it's a judgement call looking at the grain in the end of the board. But if this piece is for show, like on a raised panel, I would never flip it over. A board that's ripped and reglued will have a nearly invisible seam...unless you flip one of them over.

And a lot of people are still adamant that their way is the only 'right' way. 


Like you, for me it depends.  I'll rip down a wide panel for jointing if necessary and reglue it with no flip.

[rwe2156]

Panels made of strips will look awful unless you pay careful attention to grain matching.

For something like what you're making, the best way to make a panel is 2 bookmatched halves. Keep in mind if its figured the chatoyance reflection will be 180° out of sync so in that case you have to go with slip matching or one wide panel.

If you go with one wide panel, don't be afraid to make a skewed cut to orient the cathedrals vertically and in the middle of the panel. This can make the difference between a nice panel and a great panel!!

[Gregor1]

I have all my oak panels (10) machined with the raised panel bit. This is my first time doing this, and I learned a lot. One thing I learned is how to glue up a new panel when you screw one of them up.
I also learned that my router table sags in the middle. That might be due to 30 years of a large Porter Cable router hanging under it. I would like to buy a new, quality top and fence, but it's just not in the budget right now. The first thing I did was modify my fence to accept a couple of feather boards, to hold the pieces down. I made each cut in 4 passes. The last pass only removing about 1/16 of an inch. The cuts are not glass smooth as I had hoped for, but they will do. My Porter Cable router is set at it's slowest speed, which is 10,000 RPM. I have my fence set just shy of that center hub on the router bit. It cost me $100 to have 20 panels run through a drum sander. 3 passes each side with 80 grit, one pass, each side with 120 grit. I don't know if that's good or bad, but a drum sander is not in the budget either. I learned that a person should not make panels larger than his planer can run. For me, that is only 12". My panel are all wider than that.

I have settings of 10, 13 16 19, and 21 thousand on my router.  Is 10,000 RPM the right speed for the final pass?
Thanks  Greg

[fredhargis]

10,000 is about the low speed for most routers, you're just fine running it there.

[Gregor1]

The panels I am making are for some small chests. Bigger than a bread box, but too small to be a blanket chest. Each panel of course has 2 rails, 2 stiles, and the center panel. A front, a back, and 2 sides. Also a lid of course. My question is this. When joining the sides to the front and back, is there any strength to be gained by using 5/16 dowels, or are dowels simply used for aligning purposes?

Thanks Greg

[fredhargis]

I don't follow the part about using dowels. I've built a few frame and panel chests and dowels were never something I used. Anyway, the glued edges will be the long grain of the stiles (?) which is going to be plenty strong, but maybe I'm missing something. In the ones I've done, I usually put rabbets on the front/back panels to help with the alignment, they don't have to be deep....1/8" is plenty.

[Gregor1]

I don't follow the part about using dowels. I've built a few frame and panel chests and dowels were never something I used. Anyway, the glued edges will be the long grain of the stiles (?) which is going to be plenty strong, but maybe I'm missing something. In the ones I've done, I usually put rabbets on the front/back panels to help with the alignment, they don't have to be deep....1/8" is plenty.

That was my question. I simply didn't word it very well. I wondered if glued edges would be enough. I tried drilling dowels, and while they do line things up pretty well, they are not perfect. When making the front and back panels I didn't allow for rabbets, but maybe it's not too late. I already have all the panels glued up, so maybe just glued edges will have to do. Thank You!

[Gregor1]

I made another newbie mistake, yet again. The stiles on the front and back panels should have run the full length, rather than the rails running the full length. After assembly, the end grain of the rails will show. I had to cut some thin veneer strips, glue them on, and sanded them down. I learn something new every day. Thomas Edison once said about inventing the light bulb. "I never made one mistake, I simply discovered 10,000 ways that won't work." I can relate to that.