Greetings –
Guess this is a type of joinery question –
I’m about to embark on making the doors and drawer fronts for our new cabinets. I *don’t* want raised panel doors, in fact, I don’t want paneled doors. I’m trying to eliminate all the little horizontal edges that collect dust and crud, especially in the kitchen. Thus I’d like to make slab doors out of veneer plywood with edge banding.
That said, I also don’t like little 1/4″ wide pieces along the edges. I’d rather go with something at least 3/4″ or, and this is the thrust of the question – if I could get away with it, 1 1/2″ wide edging around all 4 sides of the plywood slabs.
Now, the cabinet face frames are ash. I re-sawed 8/4 timbers to achieve a rather handsom 1/4 sawn grain figure for all the face frames. The rub is, even after milling and letting the wood season in the shop for a few weeks, the atmosphere in the shop is, obviously quite different from what it is in the house. I’ve found that now that all the base boxes have been installed (about three weeks ago) the rails and stiles are no longer perfectly flush as they were in the shop. Plus I kinda went over the edge with the joinery and half lapped everything. Inside the door openings where some of the half laps are visible, the stiles and shrunk at least 1/64 perhaps some a bit more so they’re also visibly ….. shall we say, non-flush.
So, if I edge banded a sheet of ash plywood with 1 1/2″ verts and horz would I be asking for trouble? I think I’ve already answered my own question but in case someone has an idea how to make this happen I’d like to hear it.
Thanks in advance.
From Beautiful Skagit Co. Wa.
Dennis
Replies
I've edge banded lots of 3/4" plywood drawer fronts and 3/4" plywood doors. I always bought the 3/4" rolls of edge banding with the hot melt glue pre-applied to one side. I always used lumber core plywood for this. Used a regular household iron to apply the edge banding.
I'm having trouble understanding what your looking for here. How could you possibly apply 1-1/2" edge banding to plywood that is 3/4" thick??
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
Do you mean 1.5 inch wide by 3/4'' thick edgebanding as to kind of frame the ply??
Yeah, kinda like Mike said - not edge banding as you might envision it but framing the plywood with a 1 1/2" frame. I think I can assume the plywood will be stable enough not to present a problem but if I run either the vertical or horizontals through I'll have some movement in the width of either/both of these.
I think I'll abandon the idea and just go with some 1/4" ripped pieces.
...........
From Beautiful Skagit Co. Wa.
Dennis
1-1/2" isn't too wide, if you think you'll like that look. People make cross grain mortise and tenon joints all the time with members wider than that.
Biggest problem, IMHO, would be getting the ply and banding flush.
Might want to consider using 1/2" ply for the panels, grooving the rails and stiles to accept that, then mitering the ends. That would give you a +/-1/16" shadow line on the doors.
After the doors are glued up, you could slot the corners for cross grain walnut splines. Or, you could shoot a little biscuit in when you glue up.
As far as banding goes, I usually rip 5/16" strips, glue up, then flush trim the edges. After that I rip the extra 5/16" off with a 80T cut off blade for a smooth edge, ready to round over and sand.
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