Guys; Wife wants hard maple doors finished with shellac and Fuhr 355 . I originally was going to make raised panels for the door. She wants plain panel , shaker style.
What would be the best maple panel to buy? I dont want to plane down all my rock maple. But I would like to keep them the same color. I am afraid maple plywood will look different. Any other suggestions?
Replies
CMBB- The maple ply I've used in the past has finished just like solid maple, in terms of color and texture.
Just an idea but, being their your own kitchen cabinets, what about bookmatching the panels? Make a reverse raised panel, so it's still flat on the front, but it's rabbeted to sit flush with the back of the door. That way you don't need all the thickness required for a raised panel, and you'll have a nice looking bookmatch and some more heft to your door than using plywood. If you use plywood I'd use plain sliced and quartersawn.
John E. Nanasy
Am I oversimplifying this by asking why you don't simply resaw the boards for the panels and then plane them? You'll get twice as many panels as if they were raised panels, and use half as much wood. Even if you don't have a bandsaw, you could justify this method and get a new tool.
John
Johnhardy; Most of the rough sawn stuff I have is 1" , can I get a flat panel gluing 1/2 to 1/4" pieces togther?
Absolutely. I just finished some amazing curly maple rocking cradles and on each end are bookmatched panels made from resawing 4/4 stock. It was flat to begin with and I simply abrasive planed it after resawing. (I was worried about chipping if I used my planer, since the grain of curly maple is so squirrely. Regular maple should go through the planer just fine.)
My panels were 1/4 inches thick and were just fine. But they were narrow enough that I didn't need to do any gluing. What I'd do in your case is get both sides flat, do the resawing, and if you needed to do anything at that point it would probably be due to end-to-end bowing, probably due to kiln drying problems. Assuming none of that, I'd glue-up before any more planing and I'd use the original face on the inside if there are issues relating to taking off lots of stock. You should be able to get the 4/4 stock down to 7/8ths before resawing, the resawing will give you two pieces that are approximately 3/8ths+, so you'll have lots to work with in getting 1/4 inch panels.
John
JohnHardy; The problem I have is that I do not have a bandsaw. Right at the moment, like say in the year 2003 I can not afford one. I thought of resawing on table saw, then gluing the panels togther.
You could resaw on the table saw, but the boards would have to be no more than 5 or so inches wide. This would require a resaw on one side, then flipping the board over and resawing the other side (keeping the same face against the fence). I'd use a thin kerf blade so that you only take off 3/32nds, not a full 1/8th inch. If you wanted wider panels you'd have to glue some boards back together. Definitely doable. But you'd need to make sure that you're careful in resawing and that your saw can handle the load, etc.
Another option would be to contact a local cabinet shop and have them resaw the boards for you. They could probably do it at a reasonable cost. Where are you located?
John
North western Maine.
CMBB,
I'm just reading the conversation between you and John on re-sawing the maple for panels and wanted to through in $.02 worth. I did some re-sawing of panels on the TS...think they were abut 10"...cut to 3 1/4 on each side (thin kerf 10" blade)....finish up with a 12 blade in saber saw/sawsall....put through planer...came out okay.
Try and find someone to resaw for you. I personally think that bookmatched solid maple is the way to go if you are planning on having two panels per door with a center stile. I'm not sure if that is your plan to have double flat panel doors. I recently did this for cherry cabinets and the bookmatching looks great. It was a lot of extra work but well worth it If there is not going to be a center stile in your doors and just a single flat panel door then plywood would look ok since it maybe difficult to find enough wide stock that would allow bookmatching using only two faces.
Just got through building 40+ slab maple doors and drawer faces for my kitchen. Doors were 3/4" B, or C-2 maple ply, edge-banded with solid maple. Drawer faces were solid hard maple.
The maple ply finishes darker (warmer) than the solid maple. All the doors/drawer faces were finished with nitro lacquer.
Tried some Target PSL tinted with an amber dye, and it did even out the color somewhat. However, we liked the contrast between the 3/16" banding and the maple ply better.
You might want to try 1/4" Baltic Birch for the panels. It'll have closer to the same color than the maple ply.
The local supplier I use had some dead white 1/2" maple ply, but it was very expensive.
My recommendation would to buy some good quality 1/4" mable plywood or veneer backed on 1/4"mdf Go with plain sliced vener, not rotary cut veneer. Most ply(or mdf)is usually rotary, so make sure you ask. Also, stay away from the import brands. Most import brands have a very thin veneer laminated to a lower grade luan veneer, which is then pressed to the substrate. It is also so thin that many times the glue actually soaks through the veneer which makes staining/finishing a nightmare due to bleed through. The import brands can practically be sanded through by just breathing on the veneer. Plywood(Laminated veneer/core) is much more stable than solid and you will have less problem with expansion and contraction than solid wood. It's usaually lighter in weight. Makes manufacturing of the doors alot easier. Plywood is also alot cheaper than solid. Save the solid wood for the next project. I would personally chose a venner that is laminated to a mdf core over a veneer core due to veneer core usually has interior flaws that telegraph though to the surface veneer/finish.
Again, only my opinion
I wouldn't waste the solid stock for flat kitchen panels when ply will do better and faster. Nice figured stuff is available.
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