I bought a load of 4/4 American Cherry (Black Cherry?) almost 30 years ago that I’ve dug into from time to time for furniture and cabinetry projects. I’m using the last of it now on a china cabinet. The most troublesome pieces will be some 13″-wide panels I’ve glued up for use on the sides.
My plans call for the panels to be free-floating in a frame, which will bring the total width to around 19″. The dadoes on the frame into which the panels will be placed are 3/8″ deep. Before I cut the panels down to their finished widths, I thought I’d ask around to see if I can get some expert opinions on what sort of seasonal movement I can expect across the face of these 13″ panels. At the outset, the cabinet will be placed in my home in the San Francisco Bay region of California, where drastic and sustained humidity changes are rare. But my hope is that the cabinet will outlive me by several generations and, since I have no idea where it may be moved in the future, I want to try to plan for the worst.
For the most part, the Cherry is flatsawn. At the present time, my meter says it has just under a 10% moisture content (MC), and so if the MC changes by around 5% over time (to anywhere between 5% and 15%), I figure I might get about a 5/32″ increase or decrease in width. Can any readers here tell me whether I sould plan to deal with more than the 5/32″ dimensional change?
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http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/shrinkulator.htm
luv cherry
I work pretty much do all my projects in cherry now. I just love it. The panel with will be a good one to watch and since it's flatsawn you will get some movement for sure. I have a wine cabinet with some bookmatched panels that width pluss a couple inches and after a year she's not moved much but some. It really depends not on the moisture content as much (IMHO) on swings in humidity. If you live in an environment that is pretty constant I'd not worry. If you have both hot and cold which I do then some movement will happen. I allowed 1/8" each side and zero top bottom clearance on my panels most times and pin the center with the 1/8 each side. I hate a panel that rattles and moves. For the big door i did that was a raised panel as well, I went 3/16" each side just to cover my bets and probable it would have been fine but I did not take chances. My house is air conditioned but being in PA the summer does allow for windows open and nice breezes. If you are in a more constant environment standars could apply. There are calculators out there, but in my invironment now and experience from living in St. Louis for a while, found each location has its own dynamic. None of the pieces I did from MO, had any issues here. I'm doing a big bed now and just getting ready to go down and look at some 12/4 cherry I ripped last week for the posts take care.
Thanks, Bones.
I really like cherry, too. It's a good medium to tell me if my tools are sharp (since it burns so easily when they're not). One trick I've learned to stop floating panels from rattling is to squeeze a few drops of silicone sealant at 3 to 4 inch intervals inside the dado. After I let it set up (maybe, 24 hours) the drops semi-harden into deformable "balls" that can then be compressed by the expanding panels without transferring all the movement into pressure to separate the stiles from the rails.
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