will my panels warp?

[Wyatt]

I'm putting together doors for shaker kitchen cabinets. The panels are roughly 11x21. The original plan was to resaw and bookmatch some 6" wide cherry. I wanted 1/2" thick panels with a 1/4" rabet all around to go into the doors. The raised panel would be on the backside of the door leaving a flat front.

I jointed one side of the boards flat and one edge square. After resawing, both pieces bowed much more than I expected. These were then jointed and planed flat and then glued together to get the 11" wide panles. Due to the warping, some pairs of boards turned out thinner than others once they were machined flat again.

Since there was no way to get all 7 panels near 1/2" thickness, I'm thinking about taking them all down to 1/4" and skipping the raised panel. I did this to one board as a test and it looks good. But I'm worried about 1/4" solid panels warping in the future.

Is this going to be a problem? If I do it again, I'm not going to resaw and bookmatch. Instead I will just match boards as best as I can and go for the full 1/2" thickness. I'm kind of new to panels in doors, is 1/4" that much more likely to warp than 1/2"? Should I just get 1/4" cherry veneered mdf and go with that?

[mike hide]

Is your material dried to the correct moisture content ? if so then perhaps you should try taking a very light cut when resurfacing and leaving the boards to stabililze to a couple of days before taking another light cut. In addition make sure the boards are stored at all times so that air can get to both side [ie on end leaning against a wall on one corner] In addition keep the boards out of the sun.

Bear in mind every time you surface a board you end up with a new surface stresses to relieve ,for highly figured woods these stresses can be high and so in relieving then these wood move more than normal

[George]

What Mike means to say is that your pieces should have nearly equal moisture both inside and out, because inside is going to become out when you resaw. There is no "proper" moisture content to ensure non-warp.

It's a lot easier for folks with a penchant for procrastination to get good resaws, because we've had the wood stickered and waiting through a couple weeks of nagging by the time we take it to the bandsaw, but even this is no guarantee of success. Sure we avoid the problems of bringing the wood from the dealer direct into our environment, but we may also be involved in a change of average relative humidity ourselves. It's raining a lot here right now, so if I were to resaw, the dryer wood in center would pick up moisture. In another month or so I'll be heating constantly, and the outside will be dryer than the in.

Steady conditions and full exposure of the surfaces is a good idea. I believe the FPL says 1% MC per week adjustment on a 4/4 board. Three weeks is 3%, which should make the difference three or less, in my experience. Tolerable.

Or make your own constant conditions with humidity control. Once your panels are contained in their frames, they can't go far, and you wouldn't notice the attempt.

[dadiOH]

That's what the rails and stiles are for. _______________

That works too.

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[Wyatt]

Sounds good to me.

When I first resawed the boards, I did it the same day or a couple of days after I bought them and they were 6/4 stock. Due to some, er, delays the panels have been glued together and waiting for my attention for several months.

What I am reading leads me to believe that if I now take them down to

1/4", they should be pretty stable.

thanks guys.