Raised panel cab doors from ply?

You could do the panels with MDF but ply will never give you a smoothe
enough surface and the glue will kill your cutter.

Rails\Stiles should be solid stock. I can't imagine why you would want
to try to use ply it will be really bad.


trs80 wrote:
> In my garage is a storage cabinet with flat 22x42 3/4 plywood doors.
> We are dressing up this area a bit.
> What do you think about using the old doors to make raised panels doors?
> Then using 3/4 birch plywood for the rail and stiles.
>
> Would the plywood shape ok with a 3 1/2" raised panel router bit?
>
> It would be painted.
>
> Any thoughts?

How about making your doors out of straight mdf and routing a groove
with a profile of your preference in from the edge about 2" all the
way around to simulate a raised panel door?

When I built shelves for my shop out of plywood I plastered the edges
with some "Bondo" car body panel filler and sanded after it cured in
about 30 minutes. This gave a nice smooth sealed plywood edge that
looked real nice after painting. I wouldn't use plywood for rails and
stiles though.

On the same shelves I used kiln dried 2x4's and surfaced them with a
jointer and planer to a common dimension making square corners. This
looked a lot better painted than just undressed stud grade 2x4's and
was a whole lot cheaper than buying "real wood". As well as using
these dressed 2x4's for framing the shelves I also used them to build
a frame glued and screwed to the bottom of each shelf. After filling
the edges with bondo the plywood and 2x4 looked like one solid shelf.
With the verticle support columns spaced 4 feet apart I have never had
any problem with bowing even with my heaviest tools. The 3/4" C/D
plywood even looks nicer than shop grade birch painted after a skim
coat of bondo applied to the surface filling all the voids and grain
followed by a real quick sanding with 100 grit. I can even climb on
the shelves without a problem, something I wouldn't reccomend with
laminated particle board shelves.

After 3 years of heave abuse I haven't had any chipping of the bondo.
The high gloss white paint has also held up well and makes the shelves
a lot brighter and easier to see stuff on.

Yes, it would be too weak in my opinion.

On Jan 29, 8:42 am, "trs80" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Is it Ok to use MDF for the rail and stiles too? as well as the raised
> panel? Or is would that be too weak?
> thanks again"trs80" <[email protected]> wrote in messagenews:[email protected]...
>
> > In my garage is a storage cabinet with flat 22x42 3/4 plywood doors.
> > We are dressing up this area a bit.
> > What do you think about using the old doors to make raised panels doors?
> > Then using 3/4 birch plywood for the rail and stiles.
>
> > Would the plywood shape ok with a 3 1/2" raised panel router bit?
>
> > It would be painted.
>
> > Any thoughts?

Paint grade?.... Make the doors out of MDF. Flat, stable, and takes
paint very well.

...but for a plywood RP door, the way to do it is use plywood *only for
the field of the panel.* For the raise, glue (& miter) solid lumber
around the ply field, and then shape the raise. Door stile & rails
should be solid lumber. This works great for RP doors that have large
panels. They can be plywood,or veneered MDF, and you don't have the
expansion issues you'd run into with lumber. I'd only recommend this
for stain grade stuff though, cause it's kinda labor intensive.
HTH

trs80 wrote:
> In my garage is a storage cabinet with flat 22x42 3/4 plywood doors.
> We are dressing up this area a bit.
> What do you think about using the old doors to make raised panels doors?
> Then using 3/4 birch plywood for the rail and stiles.
>
> Would the plywood shape ok with a 3 1/2" raised panel router bit?
>
> It would be painted.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>

Is it Ok to use MDF for the rail and stiles too? as well as the raised
panel? Or is would that be too weak?
thanks again
"trs80" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In my garage is a storage cabinet with flat 22x42 3/4 plywood doors.
> We are dressing up this area a bit.
> What do you think about using the old doors to make raised panels doors?
> Then using 3/4 birch plywood for the rail and stiles.
>
> Would the plywood shape ok with a 3 1/2" raised panel router bit?
>
> It would be painted.
>
> Any thoughts?
>
>