fred m deolick

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First of all let me say that I am a struggling, fledgling cabinet maker who is new to this router game.
I am making a large walk-in cedar closet. It will have four 6' wide wardrobes along the walls with raised panel doors. The first door that I made was very satisfactory. Most of the second one's thin strips on the backside, created by the routing, cracked and shattered when I put the thing together. I know that ceder is bad about splitting but is there anything I can do to make the panels less likely to split and crack. The wood is planed down to 3/4". Would it help if I used 7/8" wood? I might be better off to make them out of oak and line them with cedar. But the cedar raised panels are so beautiful.
The wood that I used was cut on my TimberKing bandmill. It was air-dried indoors for 3 years.
I would appreciate any advice and suggestions. The Puking Polecat

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reible

Did this happen when you were dry fitting things?

fred m deolick

Yes, It was just snap crackle and pop as I lifted the dry assembled piece. The doors are 18" x 44". I have ten more doors to do. So you can see my concern. I'm gonna try using 7/8" stock and adjust the router to allow a thicker lip on the backside of the framework. The puking Polecat

BobandRick

Can you show me a photo of the door panel? Not sure thicker material is going to help or change the results.

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reible

This is what I'm picturing, this correct? See attachment

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fred m deolick

Yes, thats exactly what is happening. The thinner strip on the back side seems to crack with little pressure on it. I've noticed that the white colored wood seems to be more likely to splinter.

fred m deolick

I have taken pictures of the wardrobe and could take a closeup of the panel; but I do not know how to attach it to a message to your forum. In addition to not being too knowledgeable about router work, I am computer illiterate.

fred m deolick

I hope this attachment goes through. Is successful, I'll send a closeup of the door panel. The Puking Polecat

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fred m deolick

Hope this helps. I mounted the pitiful door on my wardrobe because I am pressed for time. It will be replaced when I find an answer to the problem.
When I retired from the military I promised my wife that I would build her a house in two years. I retired in the year 2000. We Had it framed up and dried in by bonifide carpenters. Then we took over. If you are still interested I'll give you a full rundown on our progress. The puking Polecat

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reible

Let me list a couple of things that come to mind about why that might have happened. These are in order of my best guess to just a guess.



Were all the pieces flat? If the rails/stiles/panels/ were warped or cupped things would be very difficult to line up and fit. Even dry wood has stresses, sometimes when cutting or doing other operations the board that was flat will twist. Sometimes this happens even as you are working on the piece sometimes it takes a couple of days to notice.



When you did a dry fit of the panel to a rail/stiles was the panel free to move about or very snug? The panels need to be free to move and if that was not the case either the panel needs to be smaller or the “groove” wider.



Did you take a piece of sand paper and easy the sharp edges? The panel ends are going to be hidden anyway so take a little more off on them.


If you were using clamps to pull the dry fit together they may have buckled or arched the door. Some clamps are not designed to tighten a frame together so it requires more time and extra effort to make sure everything remain flat. Light tapping helps, if you have to really hit it then something is wrong so stop.



What you might be able to do to save the work you have done is to remove the back strips altogether. Drop in the panels and use a filler strip in place of that removed strip, more like you would do if the panels were glass. That strip could be glued then tacked with a brad push nailer to the rail/stile. Make sure no glue gets on the panels they will need to move.



If you don't have one of those brad push nailers get one, they are less then $10 and work great on this sort of project.

Ed