Stub Tenon for cabinet door?

I'm making a wall type cabinet and and am ready to make the door. Any experience with the durability of using a stub tenon for the frame and panel door? The panel is veneer over a substrate, so it could be glued to the rails and stiles for increased rigidity. Or am I just asking for trouble down the line?

Reply to
brian_j_roth
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I have probably built a hundred cabinet doors this way, with floating panels. There should be no issue with this method unless the panel is extra extra extra large.

They are quick and easy to build. If you have never built them I recommend cutting the grove for the panels first. Cut the rails the finished length plus double the length equal to the depth of the groove depth. Run the rails and styles through the TS making 2 passes flipping the board end for end after each pass so that the groove ends up dead center to establish the width to fit the panel.

Then with the TS and dado blades or a router table and a large straight cut bit form the tennons on the rails to just a hair short of the depth of the grooves.

Reply to
Leon

Think of it as a cope and stick joint except there's no profile on it.

Whiteside makes a Tongue & Groove assembly bit that turns this into exactly what you would do with a raised panel door. It's just two

9/32 slot cutters with a 9/32 gap between them. You can cut both the tenons and groove with it, but I just use it for the tenons. I use the dado set in the TS to do the grooves, I have the correct shims to get the proper fit marked. I have a setup block for the bit height at the router table and the fence position recorded for the TS as well. Tenons are done in one pass, same with the grooves. Fast and easy.

-Kevin

Reply to
LEGEND65

If the panel is engineered (plywood/mdf/etc.) rather than solid wood then gluing the panel should be fine and will provide substantial additional strength.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Friesen

I never thought of this. I'm going to be making some shaker doors with plywood or mdf. You *can* glue the panels when they're not solid, can't you? You get a concept in your head and it sticks even when you don't need it.

Any reason to leave them floating, guys? Other than to retain that nice rattle sound when the door shuts. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

I should have said originally that my panel was veneer over MDF, instead of the generic substrate. So yeas you can glue it in. I was wondering about the streangth, but as another poster said, it is like a cope and stick without a profile.

Reply to
brian_j_roth

No reason to leave them floating other than to cut down on glue and assembly time. Because heavier raised panel style doors are typically heavier and are not glued in place, it really is not necessary to glue in a thin panel, it is basically over kill. If you cut the groves like I mentioned in another post there is no panel rattle. That is the problem you run into if you use a rail and stile bit set which a fixed panel thickness. With the TS you literally make the groove the same width as the panel thickness.

Reply to
Leon

I have been down that road, I prefer to save time and have a tighter fitting panel using the TS.

Reply to
Leon

It is almost like a litany with him.

Lew

Reply to
Lew Hodgett

It just so happens 1/4" baltic birch plus veneer on one side fits in there just right, which on a small panel works fine. I suspect undersized 1/4" ply with veneer on both sides would fit pretty well too, haven't tried it. Usually I do a flat solid panel and just drum sand it to fit.

-Kevin

Reply to
LEGEND65

Well drum sanding panels to fit can take a while, especially if you have

20-30 or so do. I still prefer to simply cut the grove to the exact needed thickness. Much faster and a for sure perfect fit.
Reply to
Leon

Did you read any of the replies? Good. Now throw all that advice in the trash.

The panels MUST float. Regardless of material used. If you decide to glue the panels in place, refer back to this post 2 years mAX down the road. YOU NEVER confine a panel within a rail & stile frame. EVER,

But don't listen to me. I'm just a guy with 4000+ kitchens under his belt. In 33 years, the only trouble I have ever had with doors that I made, were 5 piece doors that had the panel fit in too tightly, glued in, or trapped in place by too much acrylic lacquer.

I'm sorry if I offended anybody, but allow the panel to float. What are those thingies called? SpaceBalls? (I just use closed cell cord that one uses to rebuild screen doors/windows. Just 1/2" pieces located two per side.

Reply to
Robatoy

Did you read any of the replies? Good. Now throw all that advice in the trash.

The panels MUST float. Regardless of material used. If you decide to glue the panels in place, refer back to this post 2 years mAX down the road. YOU NEVER confine a panel within a rail & stile frame. EVER,

I only have about 30 years of experience of doing this also. Not nearly

4,0000000000000000 kitchens but hey, results are results. ;~) While my advise also did not recommend gluing the panel in place, perhaps you can explain to us why a plywood or MDF panel should not be glued in place. That will help those that do this as a practice understand why, other than it should not be done. My thoughts are that it is simply not necessary but have had no problems with any of my furniture that has plywood panels clued directly to the edge of hard wood where glue and biscuits are the only means of holding things together.
Reply to
Leon

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Reply to
Upscale

Sorry, I can't report back in two years max as my newest glued in plywood or masonite panels are older than that. Oldest are around 12 years.

Reply to
dadiOH

While I don't have as many years doing this as you guys, my understanding is that with a simple rail and stile door with a *single panel*, it's the stability of the panel (or lack thereof) that dictates whether or not it must float. If the panel is made from stable material with no chance of expansion, there is no reason why it can't be glued in place. The overall width or height of the door as a whole may change slightly due to expansion or contraction in the *width of the rails or stiles*, but wood does not expand or contract (significantly) along its length so there should be no measurable change in the 1/4" or so of area of contact around the perimeter of the panel. If the panel is unstable, it may change in width relative to the length of the rail (assuming the panel is vertically oriented), and that's a problem.

However, if you have a large *multi-panel* door (or something similar), then gluing stable panels in place would be a problem. Multiple rows of rails and stiles all moving at different rates across their width would cause all manner of stress throughout the workpiece.

Reply to
Steve Turner

Correct. I just wanted to have some insight as to what Robatoy has been finding wrong with gluing a stable panel in place. Of the many bathroom and kitchen remodels I have done if used the stub tennon method on several jobs. The center plywood bead board panel is always painted and that paint effectively glues the panel in place. A bathroom in my home is done this way and 6 years later shows no signs of problems as well as a kitchen and laundry room I did for a friend/customer in the same way some 10+ years ago. I have heard no complaints from 3 other customers with the same painted panels. I feel however that gluing a panel in place may be more problematic if the door is hit or if something heavy drops on it. Typically the glue joint is stronger than the wood and the joint is not going to fail before the wood does. Gluing the panel in will add strength to the door in this situation however if something or some one fell on the door, the door may very well tear the face frame off of the cabinet providing the hinges don't fail. I personally would rather the door come apart than parts of the cabinet.

Reply to
Leon

I also have a few kitchens/doors under my belt, and this is the way I've approached it for a number of years:

With a door made using mortise & tenon/floating tenon joints, I do not feel it necessary to glue a panel of any kind in, and use string for spacers. A stub-tenon-to-groove glue joint is a relatively weak joint, and, depending upon the door size, I have no problem gluing in a plywood panel if I feel the door needs it.

So far, so good .. YMMV.

Hell, split the difference and glue just the middle third on all four sides if you think the relative weakness of the joint will benefit.

Reply to
Swingman

If I am in doubt on a larger door, I will usually put a dot of glue in the groove in all four sides as I don't like the rattle if the panel shrinks.

The way I learned to make doors was to let the panel float. But on smaller doors, I haven't had one fail when I glued it all around. And I cannot count the number of room sized doors as well as kitchen doors I have caulked in place since all the old "natural" finishes are being replaced by white paint. No failures in the fields of the panels yet, but in some cases there are some hairline movement cracks at the panel to adjacent wood areas.

I didn't want to post...

I was intimidated by someone that turns out

*gulp*

almost 2 1/2 finished kitchens , day in and day out. That's a finished kitchen in just 18 hours, every week for 33 years!

WAAAAAY outta my league.

I am seeing a man standing on a top of a new CNC machine, a steely eyed all seeing gaze in his eyes, Molson in hand, cape blowing in the breeze....

Yippeeee!

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

wrote

I didn't want to post...

I was intimidated by someone that turns out

*gulp*

almost 2 1/2 finished kitchens , day in and day out. That's a finished kitchen in just 18 hours, every week for 33 years!

WAAAAAY outta my league.

I am seeing a man standing on a top of a new CNC machine, a steely eyed all seeing gaze in his eyes, Molson in hand, cape blowing in the breeze.... ================================

Careful there Robert.

We don't want to get the man in trouble with Homeland Security!

Reply to
Lee Michaels

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