Hi,
A client has designed a cabinet that features solid wood slab doors. The doors themselves are built up in 1″ thick laminations to create a “butcher-block” (or workbench) effect. Given the thin laminations, I would think these doors will be stable enough to avoid the use of battens on the back (to resist twisting), but the 1/8 reveal around the doors is pretty crucial – curious to hear opinions if I should use battens on the back or not? Thanks…
Replies
All butcher block that I have seen is, at minimum, 3" thick to avoid cupping. If you follow that ratio, a 1" thick slab would be made up of laminates only .33" thick. That would require a sizable amount of work. That said, I think the success of that application would depend on using straight, tight grained dry stock.
Dwight
No matter how thin you slice it,a 15" cabinet door has a lot of potential to change width. If you are using hard maple in the butcher block theme and every strip was quartersawn, the change between 7% late winter moisture content and potential 12% summertime moisture content would use the full 1/8" reveal. (the shrinkulator says a quartersawn board which was 15" at 7% moisture would be 15.13" wide at 12%.) Mahogany would swell less that 1/8" in that moisture swing, and cherry might just barely make the grade, if all pieces were quartersawn.
If you want that design to work, it would almost have to be a veneer,front and back, over MDF or other stable panel. Perhaps the panel "edges" could be a full width laminate on each side. The problem comes with the top and bottoms, where it would be difficult to add edging that looks like butcherblock end-grain.
When you say "thin laminations" I am imagining 1/16" veneers plyed up to make a door, AKA glued lamanitions. Really you are just making regular glued up panels. Using narrow strips (1") will help prevent cupping but will not change, at all, the expansion cycles. That will be the problem.
The good thing is that the strips are narrow enough that you can use all quarter sawn stock, with out paying the quarter sawn price. Plain sawn 5/4 lumber will give you nearly QS stock when you rip it into 1" strips.
Your idea is very doable, and will look very cool. The doors will need to be full-overlay and you will have to have a full face frame with stiles between every door, Even those that swing away from each other. The stiles need to be wide enough to not show the changes in movenent, especially since it is unlikely that they will all move at the same rate. You dont want uneven reveals of the face frame between doors. The movement wont be that much, but it will prevent you from making a Euro style design or using inset doors; I think that 1/8" reveals are imposible. The other potiential complication is that the doors will be pretty heavy so use heavy duty hardware, all the hardware manufacturers offer a line. The final problem could simply be that there are a LOT of glue joints to fail. First rip the strips over sized then let them sit stickered for as long as you can, a week should be enough if it is dry. Then joint and plane them and glue up imeadiately, the same day. Small pieces tend to be a lot more unstable.
Really what you are describing has been done for at least a hundred years in production shops. Before engineered substrates, veneers were applied to panels glued up from narrow (<2") strips of secondary wood. Even now most paint grade trim installed in homes is glued up narrow strips that are fingerjointed on top of that.
I would be concerned that these doors are going to be fragile. In use kitchen doors take a lot of abuse, banged shut, etc. so you are possibly looking at glue joint fractures over time. I feel it will also be difficult to screw hinges into end grain, and with the weight penalty you have these doors will almost certainly droop over tiem. The movement issue may be also difficult to overcome without compromising the overall look and I feel that you are running the risk or warping or washboarding with these doors in the longer term.
Would it not be possible to use a stable substrate such as MDF then veneer it "oyster-style" using end grain veneers? This would be a tad labourious to produce and quite wasteful but would have the advantage of being a lot lighter and much more stable whilst retaining the look that your client wants.
Scrit
If I understand his post, the glued up strips will be 1" by the height of the door. So the end grain will be on the top and botttom edge of the door. He said a "butcher block or work bench fashion", I took it he ment work bench. If the doors will be 1" squares with the end grain facing out then that will be a disaster. However if it is simply a glued up panel with 1" wide boards I don't see why bettens would be necessary.
Mike
Hi
Oops, my mistake! Recently did a real butcher block with all end grain and still got it on the mind! That said I reckon you'd need to run a couple of dovetail grooves across the back and insert dovetail battens. I wouln't like to try that as an inset door, though, because of the expansion/contraction problems you'd potentially have to deal with, especially in a kitchen. Franz Karg shows this type of construction in both his books, "Modern Cabinetmaking in Solid Wood" (pp 124/125)and "Solid-Wood Cabinety Construction" (pp 14/15) with the doors either splined or T&G planked in the main, but back battens are much in evidence.
Scrit
The only real issue I see is mounting these doors within a face frame(inset). They will move a bit so the reveals will change and if you are too tight to begin with - bind. An overlay door would be preferable. Battens across the backs of the doors ( elongate the screw holes) would help to off set some potential cupping that could occur. Edge glued solid wood panels are going to move some no matter what you do. I don't think weight is an issue with standard euro hinges, unless the doors approach 24' wide or are extremely tall. Also, make sure to finish both sides the same. ie : 3 coats front=3 coats back.
-Paul
Won't work, if I understand your description.
Reason #1: If the reveal is "crucial", this design is not dimensionally stable enough to work since it will move a lot, messing big time with the reveal.
Reason #2: Fifteen 1" strips glued up will want to cup. The door will NOT stay flat. (You may be able to minimize this by being careful to flip the growth rings in alternate strips, but I wouldn't count on it.) My own experience with battens is that it takes a serious batten to keep wood flat if it wants to warp and that will not solve the dimensional stability issue.
Reason # 3: A door made this way is susceptable to cracking along the grain. Think of a karate dude splitting a board this size along the grain. WAY too easy to split.
If your client insists on the "look", I'd look into alternate designs, such as making the door out of two or three layers of laminations in alternating grain direction, or laminating the face on to ply with edge banding. (Still not ellegant.)
Mike Hennessy
Hi everyone-
Thanks a lot for the input. I realize I could have been a bit more descriptive in my original post, but I am glad to see people basically understand the design. The doors will be overlay (to a freestanding sideboard cabinet) and the laminations will run in a horizontal fashion. And whoever pointed it out, is dead on right - I'm basically creating a quartersawn slab from plainsawn material. The doors are approximately 20" x 20" in dimension and most likely 7/8" in thickness. Unfortunately (or fortunately), veneering is not an option since the client wants to retain the richer deeper look of solid wood (and has actually requested knots/defects and all). I am not hugely worried about the weight as I've found hinges that can carry the weight (or so the manufacturer says - I'll do a test prior to installation). I've made my share of cutting boards and never had a problem with glue/joint failure - like I said, my two main concerns were expansion (thus affecting the 1/8" reveal on top and bottom) and cupping/twisting. Thanks to whoever did the math on the expected expansion. In the interim, I actually got my hands on the chart as well and came up with similar #s. I would think the door would actually be more stable than a piece of material of the same dimension, (but out of a single board), considering the lamination process (essentially, all those counteracting forces between the layers and all that glue). Am I correct in this? I will also check out Franz Karg as soon as I can. Inset dovetail battens would certainly be the most elegant I think, but then with a 7/8" thick door we are talking about battens of approximately 1/2" in thickness and would those really be effective (as someone pointed out, battens have to be pretty hefty to counter the force of a piece of wood that wants to cup)? thanks again..
I agree that the look of ordinary commercial veneer can be a problem, but you might make him a sample with "real" veneer--about 1/16" thick. That will finish so close to looking like solid wood it would be hard to tell, but should still work OK over a stable substrate. You can make this your self pretty easily, and include the occasional tight knot.
Steve
I agree with you on this one. I'd resaw some thicker veneer, vacuum bag it to some mdf or apple ply, and make a sample door to show the customer. If done correctly, it WILL look just like a slab, only it will be stable.
Merry Christmas,
Jeff
I really can think of no reason why cupping will be worse when glueing up small boards. There is NO difference between 15 1" boards and 2 7.5" boards. Actually if you randomly assemble the 1" boards and the growth rings more or less alternate it will be MORE stable. Think of it this way, the worst case senario is to have a 20" wide flat sawn board. The arc of the growth rings on a typical board of this size would cause the potiential for a lot of cupping. When you cut it up into 1" strips and alternate the rings it will even out and show no cupping. Because you intend to orient the boards to be quarter sawn there will be even less to worry about. In fact I know that a 20" flat sawn maple panel moves less than a 1/4". I have made many frame and panel doors where the panel is close to or over 20". After finishing you can track the expansion and contraction cycles by looking at where the panel meets the frame. On 30" dining tables with bread boards I have never seen more than 3/8" total movement. I'd hate to see you put big battens on the back of the doors (unless you like the look of them), they are prone to binding and causeing splits. Well it can happen.
Mike
I like Mudman's thinking - it's running pretty similar to my own (the counteracting forces of the laminations in a quartersawn piece of wood will minimize expansion, and possibly eliminate cupping - or at least make it negligible). I'm thinking of doing a quick mockup, applying a finish and trying to recreate seasonal change - setting the mockup door next to a heater one day, the next day, next to a dehumidifier. I've got significant time before delivery and I think a couple of weeks of this "seasonal change recreation" are worth it, just to be certain. Just to keep the knot going (if people are still interested in my problems) - any suggestions for an experiment of this nature?
Make that a "humidifier."
All cupping, expansion, and de-laminating aside (put aside because they are a non-issue as far as I'm concerned), if you glue up a bunch of 1" strips it will not resemble a rustic or natural look, no matter how many knots or splits you're able to incorporate. Thus, your client is bound to be disappointed. Do a sample, it will put any fears to rest and put aesthetic reality to the test.
Mike, you're probably right on the season change simulation. As for milling, stacking for a week and re-milling, it's my normal policy anyway (usually let stock sit for at least a few days and usually leave an 1/8" in each dimension for the final mill), so that won't be a problem. It's actually not supposed to be a rustic look, but thanks to whoever pointed that out. OK, thanks guys..
Pete
Unfortunately there is no reasonable way to simulate seasonal changes in a matter of weeks. If you use heaters and humidifiers the cycling will be too fast for the wood to equalize (endgrain absorbs moisture faster and the center of the panel will not keep up). Also the heat/humidity has to be very evenly distributed. If the panel failed it would only tell you that using a heater and humidifier in cycle will cause a panel to fail. Seriously, there is no reason to worry about the stability of the panel beyond what you would of any other glued up panel. The only real concern I would have is that there are a lot of gluelines to fail. These failures occur from time to time in any situation. The way to minimize that is to allow the stock the sit for at least a day before jointing, a week is better. After jointing glue up as fast as possible.
I like the idea of showing the customer an example, but I suspect they already know what they want.
Mike
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