Oak cupboard (A Few*more* pics)

[thallow]

Well finally got round to taking some pics, I am making a cupboard to fit into the corner of a wall in the lounge. Basically the cupboard will be attached to the wall so that it is floating.

Here is a rough idea of what I have eventually decided on:



The door will open to the left and so in theory from the front it will look like this when closed:






There will be two of these, one above the other with maybe an inch or so between them.

I have a little oak that has been gently drying in my shed for around 2 years:



Firstly I am going to make the two doors, basically I dug out the straighest piece I could find with the least shakes and eventually selected this one:



I then ripped this down to about 14mm thick pieces and then attempted to plane them square by hand (see I Have seen the light thread)

After a steep learning curve, lots of splinters and sw***ing I used a sled on my table saw to square them up (sorry no pics as swmbo had the camera that day! )

So I ended up from this one piece of oak enough wood for each door, I thicknessed these and was left with the following:




At this stage I put the relevant bits together just to see how the finished doors may look, here they are just sat one on top of the other, they are face down:





Next I had to decided how big or small to make the chamfer (?) on the front edge (left and right as you look at the door) see sketchup pic at top.

After a few trials on bits of scrap I went for it and routed the curves, I was quite pleased with the result:



I did another dry clamp up and got to this stage, again the door is face down:


(Ignore the old table leg underneath with the bolt coming out of it - this is not part of my door!
And that is as far as I have got, the horizontal pieces across the back (not sure what they are called) I plan to dowel through from the side of each door and make a feature of the hardwood dowel, the jointed pieces at the front will be glued and then I plan to dowel through from the back horizontal bar into the front pieces (without breaking out into the front panels)

Anyway it will be a couple of weeks but will update as I do more work. ;D

As you all know I am a newbie to this so any comments/advice always gratefully received from your vast collective knowledge!

Cheers!
Thallow ;D ;D ;D

[paulchapman]

Hi Thallow,

Seems a rather odd construction for a door I'm not quite sure how it's going to hold itself together. You say you are going to dowel through the cross pieces to the panel. Are you also proposing to glue those cross pieces to the panel? If so, you might get problems because you will have grain going in different directions - the panel and the cross pieces at 90 degrees to one another.

If the wood has been in your shed, the strips forming the panel will tend to shrink a bit across their width when you bring it indoors. However, this shrinkage will be resisted by the cross pieces and you might get some splitting.

Cheers

Paul

[thallow]

Hi Paul
Basically I wanted the front of the door to look as one complete piece, and yep I did wonder about the wood running in different directions, but as each door is only around 35 inches high (approx I think off the top of me head!) I did not think it would move enough to split?

The wood was previoulsy barn dried and then has been sat for around 2 years, I know it takes moisture on, but would it be enough to cause a problem in this case?

[paulchapman]

thallow said:

would it be enough to cause a problem in this case?

Dunno, but you'll soon find out

You could take a chance and it might be OK but I suspect you will get some shrinkage. Let's see what others think.

Cheers

Paul

[hookie]

If you dont mind a new member making comment.


If you going to do it this way, might get away with it, if yu use some slotted screws in crossrails, so the wood can mowe about without splitting. If you don't want to see the screws, plug them over without glue, case you want to get at them later.

But I think panel will split eventually, specially oak. Was oak? I think
Alf.

[Scrit]

Mar 25, 2008 19:34:20 GMT paulchapman said:

If the wood has been in your shed, the strips forming the panel will tend to shrink a bit across their width when you bring it indoors. However, this shrinkage will be resisted by the cross pieces and you might get some splitting.

Hi Thallow

Like Paul I'd be a bit concerned about movement. If the timber has been stored outside in an unheated environment it's likely to have reached equilibrium with its' surroundings over that time. In the UK that means it will probably have reached a moisture content (MC) of 14 to 16%. If your house is gas or coal heated then I'd expect the house to be drier than that requiring a MC of 10 to 12% to reduce movement (shrinkage or swelling) whilst centrally houses are incredibly dry and may require a MC as low as 6 to 8%. Moving air dried timber into a warm, dry environment will result in the timber shrinking across it's width so fixing the front panel to braces using fixed dowels will probably give you problems at a later date.

This isn't a huge problem, but you will need to allow for shrinkage. One way to do this is to drill and counterbore the ledges (battens) oversize and screw through with a large, loose washer beneath each screw head. The centre can be screwed through directly or dowelled without problems. The idea is to allow the planked panel to move, so no glueing of ledges to front panel! The outer ends screws can be hidden beneath wooden plugs if you like.

Traditional ledged planked doors often deal with the problem of expansion very simply by having unglued T&G joints and nailing the planks onto the ledges so any moverment is evidenced by the gaps between the planks shrinking or widening over the seasons.

If you are still unsure I'll happily do a sketch of the arrangement and post that

Scrit

[thallow]

May 3, 2008 6:06:42 GMT @hookie said:

If you dont mind a new member making comment.

Nope not at all! more than grateful for your input! and welcome too btw!

[thallow]

May 3, 2008 9:52:29 GMT Scrit said:

In the UK that means it will probably have reached a moisture content (MC) of 14 to 16%. If your house is gas or coal heated then I'd expect the house to be drier than that requiring a MC of 10 to 12% to reduce movement (shrinkage or swelling) whilst centrally houses are incredibly dry and may require a MC as low as 6 to 8%.

So if it loses moisture by around say 8% how much is this in terms of actual shrinkage, I mean is there a rough formula that says (for example) 1% moisture loss results in 'x' inches across 'y' thickness of timber? or is it just completely pot luck/random?

secondly I always thought (probably wrong) that the loss would be along the length of the timber (I s'pose like a length of steel getting shorter as it cools) as opposed to the width of the timber? or is it both ?

May 3, 2008 9:52:29 GMT Scrit said:

If you are still unsure I'll happily do a sketch of the arrangement and post that

Scrit

That would be fabulous and much appreciated if you had the time!

Although after the advice from Paul, Killick and yourself I am thinking of doing a frame and panel style instead

[paulchapman]

May 5, 2008 8:35:41 GMT thallow said:

I always thought (probably wrong) that the loss would be along the length of the timber (I s'pose like a length of steel getting shorter as it cools) as opposed to the width of the timber? or is it both ?

Expansion and shrinkage along the length is so minimal that it can be ignored. It's across the width where you will get the problems. How much depends on the moisture content of the wood and how dry the room is where the piece will be kept.

Cheers

Paul

[Scrit]

May 5, 2008 8:35:41 GMT thallow said:

So if it loses moisture by around say 8% how much is this in terms of actual shrinkage, I mean is there a rough formula that says (for example) 1% moisture loss results in 'x' inches across 'y' thickness of timber? or is it just completely pot luck/random?

Not really, but the amount of shrinkage depends on the species of timber and to an extent on whether or not it has been slow grown. Another factor influencing the amount of movement is how close to quarter sawn the timber is, the more tangential the cut (i.e. the further away from quarter sawn) the greater the movement. Therefore it's not really so easy to calculate in any practical meaningful way (although if you are really keen might I suggest that you borrow Dr. Bruce Hoadley's book, "Understanding Wood" as one of the few texts readily available which discusses this). Instead what is normally done is to try and acclimatise the timber you are using to the environment it will be used in before making up (or at the very least before final assembly)

May 5, 2008 8:35:41 GMT thallow said:

secondly I always thought (probably wrong) that the loss would be along the length of the timber (I s'pose like a length of steel getting shorter as it cools) as opposed to the width of the timber? or is it both ?

This is a very common misconception amongst beginners. Timber isn't steel, so the coefficient of expansion of metals or plastic (which is the same in all three axes) isn't relevant. Timber shrinks or swells relatively little along it's length but mucjh more in thickness/width.

As promised I've done one of my Scrit drawings to try to explain in rough terms what happens to a T&G door and a flat panel door, in both cases where they are attached to cross ledges (exaggerated to make the point):



Starting with Fig 1a we have a T & G door where the individual planks are not glued together and where the screws are in fixed positions. Note in Fig 1b then Fig 1c how the planks shrink and the gaps open up. The T & G design means that a reasonable amount of shrinkage can be accommodated but eventually gaps start to show (Fig 1c)

In Figs 1d and 1e the T & G planks are glued together and only the centre screws are fixed, the outer screws being inserted into routed slots (see also Fig 2 below in my next post). In this instance the door can swell and contract without the tongues becoming visible

In Figs 1f to 1g I'm trying to illustrate what happens to a single panel door glued from planks and rigidly fixed to the ledges. Either the glue joint will fail, or worse stlll the door will crack or split (as at the lfet hand side in Fig 1f) or the screw will shear (as seen on the right hand side). By fixing to the ledgers using slotted screws you can overcome this (as shown in Fig 1h)

It is precisely to overcome these problems that frame and panel doors were invented

Scrit

[mrgrimsdale]

If you want to use those thin boards on their own I'd simply accept the shrinkage and make it a feature i.e. nail the boards on to the ledges with a gap, say 3mm? (depends how dry they are) between each one. Perfectly traditional.
The other trad solution of course is to join them into one panel but fit it floating loose in the slot of a surrounding frame.
If you want a large unbroken panel of oak then use either faced ply or buy oak boards full width, though you'd have shrinkage probs at the edges with the latter, depending on the wood and the design details.

cheers
Jacob
PS just recalled we've been here before:

How about some "Slatted ledge and brace" doors they are similar to "Ledge Brace and Batten" doors but with the battens slatted so you can view your condiment's with the doors closed.

Regards Tom

and t.v. idiot can supply a pdf!

[thallow]

Thanks for the post Scrit! As always very informative, every day is a school day huh ;D does make things a lot clearer - after all of the advice I have decided to go for a frame and panel style door instead; I have pretty much made them both (there will be one above the other) I just need to glue them up - hopefully wull post some pics this w/e. (SWMBO wants bedroom painting first)

Every time I looked at the design (esp after the input from Paul) I realised it was just 'going against the flow' and something that Jacob said about a stool in a previous thread along the lines of 'if something is awkward or just does not naturally work then there is a reason for that' and that really rang true here!

So many thanks - pics to follow shortly of work so far, so you can point out all my mistakes ;D

[thallow]

So as promised - here is my first ever frame and panel style 'door' I have made two of these - the panel sits into the frame about 1.5 cm all the way round so following on from the earlier advice if there is any shrinkage I should be ok!

NB the middle panel is currently a different colour as I have added sanding sealer to it but not yet to the frame!