FWW #165 had an article on wood movement and strategies to cope with it. Although the author obviously knows what he is doing and has success with these techniques, some of them are rather complicated and seem like overkill to a novice like me. Although some of these techniques, such as floating raised panels, are frequently seen in how-to articles, others I have never seen discussed before (like attaching side moldings). I just want to see what people's opinions of these techniques are and how commonly they are used. Like I said, some of them seem like overkill.
Any cross grain situation, like most "side molding" applications over a solid wood panel, is a potential problem over time and it is better to take steps to alleviate it in the design/building stage. IME, blanket use of glue is the achilles heel in these situations.
There are probably as many ways to handle it as there are projects, but I routinely attach molding in this situation from the inside of the carcass with slotted screw holes; or use brads (which have some give to them) with no glue; or perhaps, depending upon size, glue the front third or middle and use brads, if necessary.
Purist scream about using fasteners in fine furniture, but there are some situations where they can solve a potentially big problem.
You should get plenty of helpful, and different, advice on this issue.
If you can source (or make) stock which is perfectly matched MC-wise to the environment in which it is going to live, and that environment is guaranteed to remain stable, then you don't have to worry about end-grain to long-grain interfaces, shrinkage, swelling, warping or balancing veneers/finishes etc.
If you live in the real world where you buy in stock at perhaps 18-20% MC and the piece you are making could go into either a centrally-heated room which may go as low as 6-7% or an occasionally heated place - like a church - which may be as high as 12%, or indeed, an old house which may run the whole gamut over the year, then you need to understand how wood moves and how the effects of this movement can be minimised, otherwise you can expect warping and twisting doors, sticking drawers, split panels, and gaping joints etc.
Paying for insurance seems like overkill until the first time you're burgled. These strategies have evolved over centuries for good reasons. Most experienced woodworkers, I suspect, have at some stage fallen victim to taking shortcuts and ignoring aspects of them, to their subsequent cost in rework. The wise ones only do it once.
That does not really work because you cant't really seal against humidity if you refrain from soldering the wood into a metal box. All plastics (and therefore "surface sealers") are permeable for moisture, so all you can do with that is slow down the moisture exchange rate.
That is indeed one the strategies used to minimise shrinkage/expansion. Minimise, being the operative word, not obviate. It doesn't matter how well you seal things, the moisture, like the mail, always seems to get through! However, it will help to prevent sudden changes and a piece so treated will have more of a chance to reach equilibrium uniformly
FWIW, we Brits entered the central heating stakes late. Many people found that furniture which had lived quite happily in the same room for a couple of hundred years suddenly started to split and warp. Ultimately, the absolute value of the MC isn't the big thing - a stable environment is.
I imagine that your furniture has survived quite well because of the construction techniques used to minimise the effects of movement, rather than trying to prevent movement, and you might well find that dehumidifying your home would have an adverse effect on it.
As you could read in the star fleet academy library the process that makes the aluminum transparent also makes it permeable to moisture. This will be found out a year after it will be invented.
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