I am building gun cabinet. I was wondering if I could glue the shelves into
the cabinet.
It is a corner cabinet, the two sides facing the walls are plywood,the front
sides are oak face frames with raised panels and glass. The shelves are
plywood.
Gluing the shelves would certainly add support to the project, however I am
not sure about wood expansion and what it might do to the finished cabinet.

"ron" wrote in message
I am building gun cabinet. I was wondering if I could glue the shelves
into
the cabinet.
It is a corner cabinet, the two sides facing the walls are plywood,the
front
sides are oak face frames with raised panels and glass. The shelves are
plywood.
Gluing the shelves would certainly add support to the project, however I
am
not sure about wood expansion and what it might do to the finished
cabinet.

No problem whatsoever with plywood shelves being glued into plywood sides.
AAMOF, I prefer to both dado, and glue, the plywood shelves into plywood
casework sides.

Doing the dadoes on a table saw with a dado stack and using the same
reference edge against the fence to cut the dado in each of the sides,
_before_ you move the fence to the next location, will ensure that you get
all shelves/dividers square and level.

FWIW, here is a corner cabinet, made for a different purpose, but with the
same similar construction mentioned above. The top, bottom, and middle
shelf/partition are all glued into dadoes in the casework sides.

http://www.e-woodshop.net/Projects15.htm


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KarlC@ (the obvious)

I appreciate your quick response Swingman. If I understand you correctly, it
is ok to glue the shelves to the plywood sides but not the solid face
frames.

"ron" wrote in message
I appreciate your quick response Swingman. If I understand you correctly,
it
is ok to glue the shelves to the plywood sides but not the solid face
frames.

Generally speaking, yes. Practically, it depends upon the type of wood, and
the dimensions, of your face frames.

Some woods move less than others across the grain, "cross grain" gluing,
while generally not a desirable thing to do, can be done by gluing just a
portion of the cross grain _join_.

IOW, the center, or the front 1/3rd, etc. ... leaving the rest free to move
in the direction in which movement may be a problem.

In the case of the corner cabinet in the link, I used glue in the center 1/4
of the 6" wide quartersawn white oak where the shelves intersected the
_stiles_ of the face frame (although with the rails also dadoed, and the
plywood shelves glued "long grain to long grain" in those dadoes, that
probably wasn't even necessary.

Along with some similarly judiciously placed glue, you can include
brads/finish nails/dowels/pocket hole joinery/etc to fasten the face frame
to the case work if you think there will be a problem with the strength of
that join.

While some of the best made furniture has historically used finish nails to
fasten a face frame to the casework, it is something I generally prefer not
to do in "fine furniture" unless experience has dictated otherwise ...
although in the case of kitchen cabinets I almost always use glue and finish
nails to fasten the face frame to the plywood case.

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www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 3/27/08
KarlC@ (the obvious)