hello gang,
i need to check something with you lot if you don’t mind. i am about to take on the kitchen cabinetry in my new house and had intended in using MDF for doors and drawer faces. the doors are to be a simple shaker style painted so i thought the MDf would be good and stable. but someone has planted a seed of doubt by telling me that MDF for stiles and rails might twist. and that he has used solid beech/maple as a solution, and that these would paint up like the MDF in the rest of the cabinetry. but in my area solid maple/beech is a lot more expensive than MDF.
any thought’s about this would be a great help!
thanks a lot!
Replies
MDF is useful as a sheet material but it has a soft core that makes it impractical as a framing member, there is no good way of joining the corners of a frame for a frame and panel door. MDF has been around for a long time, I have never seen it used in the way you are proposing.
Straight grained, and preferably quarter sawn, maple, pine, or birch make good framing material. Beech and poplar are a bit more prone to warpage but, carefully chosen, are also usable.
John White, Shop Manager, Fine Woodworking Magazine
I use MDF all the time for cope-and-stick doors, install them inside-out and you have frame and panel doors.I've never painted them though, prefer a nice spray on (typically white) lacquer.
In my kitchen, some of the cabinet doors were factory made, in birch; a lot were custom made on site from mdf...raised panels...they look good, and they don't warp.
I don't know why you couldn't / wouldn't do it.
The frames were made out of MDF or just the panels?
John W.
Frames and panels both out of mdf...I'll try to get a pick tonight.
The guys even modified a router bit to match the factory profile of the panel edges...I was very pleased with their work.
Hi duffsaw ,
I have seen mdf used for stiles and rails and imo mdf makes for fantastic panels for paint grade work either flat or raised panels . As far as making stile and rails out of mdf it can be done but mdf offers little structural integrity in this application .
Soft Maple or Brown or Silver Maple make great stiles and rails and may only add a few dollars cost to each door . The savings in the years to come will mean little .
Really you may save $100 dollars on 25 doors .
FYI they make different grades of mdf , for raised panels I use a brand called Plum Creek when I can get it . It comes in a tempered panel that has a layered composition that machines even better then standard mdf .
dusty
I've used MDF for Shaker style doors, both with an inserted panel and a "false" panel. The conventional rail and stile door is easily worked on a router table or spindle moulder (shaper) and providing the green (moisture-resistant) MDF is used there will be no problems with warping. MR-MDF is also denser and will therefore edge form better. I use MDF for both the frame and the panel
The "false" shaker doors I refered to are actually made by using a 12mm door size blank and glueing/pinning pre-chamfered 6 or 8mm thick strips onto the front of the door. The overall effect is not dissimilar to a true frame and panel on the outside and once painted looks good
The main tricks with MDF are to use the MR version and to seal it thoroughly before finishing. I tend to seal flat panel surfaces with 2 coats of MDF sealant and edges get 4 to 6 coats, flatted off between coats. Once that is done and the doors are flatted off I apply two thin coats of a high solids undercoat wet on wet, denib and then apply the top coat - anything from spray lacquer to hand brushed.
So my response is that yes, MDF can warp and swell, but choosing the right grade and sealing properly can make for a low-cost good looking product
Scrit
Edited 7/26/2007 12:48 pm by Scrit
hello Scrit,
i thank you for your great reply. i would like to push another bit, if possible. would it be possible to use an 18mm door sized blank and route out the panel and then use a corner chisel to clean the corners? or woudl it be impossible to ge it right.
when you build your 'false doors', what width would your stiles and rails be? to look right on a 500mm wide door. and do you trim up the edges at the end or can they be finished well enough at the glue up stage? do you aply weight to the frame pieces when gluing up?
thanks again, hope you don't the extra questions?
regards, duffsaw
Hi Duffsaw
I used to run a shop doing CNC router machining. There we tried various techniques for routing out frame and panel look alike doors from 18mm blanks. Even using special tooling and programming to minimise the corner rounds I was never all that happy with the result and I wouldn't sell them. I've tried to chisel out rouded corners and all I can say is that MDF both requires very sharp tools and that is simultaneously blunts them very quickly. Chiselling the stuff is akin to chiselling cardboard. Personally I'd avoid doing it as there are faster and easier ways to do the job.
The width of the stiles on the "false" frame and panel doors is 50mm to 70mm (2in to 2-3/4in). I don't have a "standard" width - it really depedns on the look I'm after. I always chamfer the edes before glue-up as I reckon you get a more consistent chamfer edge that way without any bumps in it. The applied material is glued with an exterior frade (D3) PVA glue, applied thinly with a roller, and held in place with a few 18g pins while it sets (Norm style). I normally build a stack of these doors on a bench separated with polythene sheets (I use cut-up bags from a builders merchant). The stack is topped off with a piece of MFC, weighted down with a concrete building block at the top and left to dry overnight. That leaves me with a few pin holes to fill (body filler) before sanding.
Hope that helps
Regards
Scrit
I used MDF for my shop cabinet doors. They are cope and stick with flat 1/4 MDF panels. The only beefing up I did was to glue in dowels where the screws for the hinges go. It has been five years and they still look great. Probably not as much use as a kitchen, but I would do it for mine. Get the better grade MDF.
-- Thomas Jefferson, writing to his teenaged nephew.
Hey Duff,
Here is my .02 on the topic. I seem to recall that Whiteside had some router bits that were meant to route each side of the recess around the "raised panel" in an MDF door. Seems that the end result was that you got two different profiles for a fairly convincing cabinet door. The potential downsides would be a hellashious amount of nasty dust during this process and a lot of MDF "end grain" that would have to be sealed. I would also guess that the edges would tend to get knicked and beat up fairly easily. But a little touch up paint would tend to hide that. I have known a few people whose houses were trimmed out with MDF. I don't recall that any of them were to happy with that because of how easily the edges got beat up. MDF doors could be a cost effective solution until you could afford to build real wood doors for your kitchen. I made MDF cabinets and plain-slab doors for my wood shop. Cheap, fast, and functional. They work just fine for me.
hellashious amount of nasty dust
I'm imagining all that dust and it will no doubt cintain adhesive as well. That alone would make me really think hard about MDF.
It's bad enough with plywood, as the DC should take care of that. Not so sure about the MDF though.
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 7/30/2007 12:09 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
I have seen this done not in kitchen cabinets, but in free standing closets! I don't recomend this use for MDF!
If the members are stressed they will crack and split ! this unfortunatley is a sighn of cheaper furniture! Coverd with melemine it looks great! until you have to use them! stick with solid wood for frame and pannel construction! It'll be cheeper in the long run!
Chaim
You may have "seen it done" but I've made hundredas of doors this way - without come back. Then I'm only a manufacturer. MDF only cracks if it is overstressed - and a 900 x 600mm (3ft x 2ft) door installed with door bumpers is rarely stressed that much, is it?
Scit
It can be stressed by simply having kids around to grab and yank! That's how I saw them cracked, but these were thinner than what you describe, and you'r right they're perfectly fine if you don't abuse them! Like most things a little over engineering sometimes goes along way!
Chaim"paitience little grasshopper" when you can take the chisel from my hand you can then leave the school!
chaim, Perhaps this line of thinking is inherent of the disposable world we live in , cabinet door breaks a corner off , just get a new one , it's simple .
dusty
Hello there oh wise one's!
thanks for all the great info so far. i am settled on the fact that i'll be using solid material for the rails and stiles. but as i have limited tool's, i would like a simple but effective way to join the members. would biscuits or pocket be the good enough?
also, have any of you had any experience of the circular saw and guide rail system by festool? is it a good tool?
again, thanks guys!
Are your panels going to be held in grooves or dropped into rebates and held in by pinned beads?
For solid material the strongest way is going to be mortise and tenon - in my experience an essential basic woodworking skill to acquire - but failing that I'd say dowelling or even loose tenons are good.
Personally I don't think either of your two chosen methods are suitable. In fact with rebated rails and stiles they are probably impossible whereas with grooved stiles they will result in a weak, easily broken joint. Biscuits are too large for all but the largest kitchen door stile and they'll have to be left for 2 or so days after glueing before you sand out as the glue needs to set fully and the moisture (from the glue) needs to dissipate completely if you are to avoid "biscuit shadows" (where the wood swells from the water in the glue and is sanded, subsequently shrinking as the moisture dissipates and leaving a biscuit-shaped hollow "shadow" a few thou deep). I'd personally say the pocket hole jointing is really best left for carcases - pocket hole jointed doors look cheap and hurried to my mind and lack even the limited strength of a biscuit-jointed door. If you use eithjer of these methods I suggest that you hold the panel in with beadings pinned on both sides to try to maximise the glueing surface area of the joints.
Scrit
hi Scrit,
i don't know what i was thinking regarding the pocket hole and biscuit question. i'm so busy building the house that sometimes i'm on auto-pilot and just spew things out. thanks for the reply though.
i think that after some consideration, that your 'false shaker' option might be the best in my situation. this could give me the cost effective solution i need, with regard to my skill's and tool's.
thanks, and if there are any tricks for doing this let me know!
regards,
duffsaw
Hi Duffsaw
The main things are to use moisture resistant MDF and seal the edges thoroughly. Other than than the job's really quick and easy to do. As others have also said, once painted there is no appreciable difference in appearance from wooden doors (other than the back being flat). I've done quite a few sets of doors like this for budget "reskins" (just done another set at the weekend - 14 doors took me under 4 hours to make and seal the edges).
Good luck!
Scrit
Edited 8/1/2007 8:43 am by Scrit
I used mdf for my kitchen cabinet doors and drawers. It routs wonderfully and it doesn't warp. I made raised panel cathedral style doors that cam out perfect. I used poplar for the cabinet boxes, sanded well. It joins well and is strong and cheap.
After a good primer, I painted the all of it with 3 coats of white latex porch and patio paint. It is very durable and moisture resistant. Really protects mdf from moisture.
Do not hesitate to use mdf. You would neve know it isn't solid wood!
Hi duffsaw,
I've been building cabinets for over 30 years and have used all sorts of material for cabinet doors. A word of advise from my experience. Do yourself a favor and spend a little extra money and build them out of solid wood. The frames at least. You won't regret it. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. Best of luck.
Paul
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