Board and Batten Cabinet Doors?

On Fri, 26 Dec 2003 04:25:50 GMT, "Toller" <[email protected]> wrote:

>My wife bought me a rather expensive woodworking book for Christmas. I am
>trying to make the best of it, though I would have preferred the equivalent
>in wood.
>
>Anyhow, on a section on board and batten cabinet doors, it says to route a
>grove in both sides of all the boards (except of course the outside ones)
>and cut splines to fit in all the groves. Then glue the splines in all the
>right side groves, and dry fit the splines into the left side groves. The
>boards are not to be glued together to prevent them from splitting or
>curling. The boards are actually held together by the battens.
>
>The implication was that this is the only way to product a solid wood
>(non-framed) door.
>
>Questions:
>1)If the groves and splines are purely for alignment, wouldn't biscuits
>look better and be easier and cheaper?

until the boards shrank and the biscuits started to show.



> Or even tongue and grove?

should be fine.



>2)If you can glue up a wide board from narrow boards, why can't you glue up
>a door?

you can. don't put a batten on it if you do, and if any of the
individual boards wants to warp at all you're screwed

if the door is going to experience much in the way of seasonal
humidity changes you're likely to have problems with the fit going
from too tight to too loose. frame and panel doors are a traditional
design that addresses exactly this problem.


> Why would a door split or curl when a wide board doesn't?

doors pretty much by definition are used to make a division between
two different environments. at the extreme, an entry door has
heated/cooled/conditioned air on one side of it and
rain/snow/sun/weather on the other side. the opposite sides of the
door are trying like hell to do different things. it's amazing that
doors can be built to stay flat at all.



>(I glued
>up a 50"x20" chest lid about a month ago. Should I be expecting problems,
>since it essentially a door?)
>


very possibly. if the wood was all well dried and stable and will be
kept in a temperature and moisture stable location, you may be fine.


another way to stabilize a panel like that is with breadboard ends.

Bridger