I'm in the midst of building 7 bookcases for our new house. I've got the
cases together and am starting on the face frames. Usually I do my own
design, but I ran across a plan I really liked the looks of so I'm using
it.

The face frame has a 2.5" wide top rail and a 5.5" wide bottom rail. The
stiles are 2" wide. Not worried about the top rail but that wide bottom
rail seems to me to be pushing the limits for cross-grain construction.

A bottom trim piece will cover the lower 3.5" of the bottom rail. I'm
considering splitting the rail into 3" and 2" pieces and leaving a 1/2"
gap, which will be covered by the trim, between them. But that's a bit
of extra work I don't want to do if it isn't needed. Am I being overly
paranoid about wood movement?

BTW, between shelf pin holes, holes for connectors, screw holes for
levelers, and holes for screws to attach the trim, I drilled almost 1000
holes! I don't want to see a drill bit for the next 6 months :-).

--
Where have all the flowers gone? Pete Seeger 1919-2014

"Larry Blanchard" wrote:

I'm in the midst of building 7 bookcases for our new house. I've
got the
cases together and am starting on the face frames. Usually I do my
own
design, but I ran across a plan I really liked the looks of so I'm
using
it.

The face frame has a 2.5" wide top rail and a 5.5" wide bottom rail.
The
stiles are 2" wide. Not worried about the top rail but that wide
bottom
rail seems to me to be pushing the limits for cross-grain
construction.

A bottom trim piece will cover the lower 3.5" of the bottom rail.
I'm
considering splitting the rail into 3" and 2" pieces and leaving a
1/2"
gap, which will be covered by the trim, between them. But that's a
bit
of extra work I don't want to do if it isn't needed. Am I being
overly
paranoid about wood movement?

BTW, between shelf pin holes, holes for connectors, screw holes for
levelers, and holes for screws to attach the trim, I drilled almost
1000
holes! I don't want to see a drill bit for the next 6 months :-).
-----------------------------------------------------------
Purely personal but I stay away from 5+" wide pieces for furniture.

Who knows what the next 50 years will bring.

Lew

On 2/16/2014 5:32 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
I'm in the midst of building 7 bookcases for our new house. I've got the
cases together and am starting on the face frames. Usually I do my own
design, but I ran across a plan I really liked the looks of so I'm using
it.

The face frame has a 2.5" wide top rail and a 5.5" wide bottom rail. The
stiles are 2" wide. Not worried about the top rail but that wide bottom
rail seems to me to be pushing the limits for cross-grain construction.

I wouldn't be all that concerned about it providing your FF stock is at
least 3/4" thick and you're using M&T joinery on your FF?

That said, some other important factors are the kind of material/wood,
and the cut of the wood (quarter sawn, flat, etc). Basically with most
woods, the closer to quartersawn you can choose for the wider rails, the
less movement across the width, so the less the concern.

For M&T joinery on a wide rail (a "wide rail" generally considered to be
more than ten times its thickness, like the lock rail on a door, etc), a
haunched, double mortise and tenon is usually used, usually with the
distance between the two M&T about 1/3 the width of the rail.

So basically, what kind of joinery are you using for your face frames?

--
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On Sun, 16 Feb 2014 22:21:09 -0600, Swingman wrote:

So basically, what kind of joinery are you using for your face frames?

The original plan called for 2 biscuits in each end of the wide rail. I
don't have a biscuit joiner (other than the mini-Ryobi) and was thinking
of either dowels or Kreg screws. The screws would allow for a little
more movement.

--
Where have all the flowers gone? Pete Seeger 1919-2014

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message

I'm in the midst of building 7 bookcases for our new
house. I've got the cases together and am starting on
the face frames. Usually I do my own design, but I ran
across a plan I really liked the looks of so I'm using it.

The face frame has a 2.5" wide top rail and a 5.5" wide
bottom rail. The stiles are 2" wide. Not worried about
the top rail but that wide bottom rail seems to me to be
pushing the limits for cross-grain construction.

Measure the rails in a wood door sometime. A year or two ago I made four 1
1/2" thick wood doors; the lock rails are either 5" or 5.5", don't recall at
the moment; bottom rail is 8" wide.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:33:59 -0500, dadiOH wrote:

Measure the rails in a wood door sometime. A year or two ago I made
four 1 1/2" thick wood doors; the lock rails are either 5" or 5.5",
don't recall at the moment; bottom rail is 8" wide.

Check them in 20 years :-).

--
Where have all the flowers gone? Pete Seeger 1919-2014

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:33:59 -0500, dadiOH wrote:

Measure the rails in a wood door sometime. A year or
two ago I made four 1 1/2" thick wood doors; the lock
rails are either 5" or 5.5", don't recall at the
moment; bottom rail is 8" wide.

Check them in 20 years :-).

Can't, won't be around then. However, I made about a dozen passage doors -
solid butternut - about 14 years ago with approximately the same dimensions
and they are just fine.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net

On Tue, 18 Feb 2014 08:45:00 -0500, dadiOH wrote:

"Larry Blanchard" wrote in message

On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:33:59 -0500, dadiOH wrote:

Measure the rails in a wood door sometime. A year or
two ago I made four 1 1/2" thick wood doors; the lock
rails are either 5" or 5.5", don't recall at the
moment; bottom rail is 8" wide.

Check them in 20 years :-).

Can't, won't be around then. However, I made about a dozen passage doors -
solid butternut - about 14 years ago with approximately the same dimensions
and they are just fine.

oh, nice , what color did you paint them?

basilisk

On 2/17/2014 8:36 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Mon, 17 Feb 2014 14:33:59 -0500, dadiOH wrote:

Measure the rails in a wood door sometime. A year or two ago I made
four 1 1/2" thick wood doors; the lock rails are either 5" or 5.5",
don't recall at the moment; bottom rail is 8" wide.

Check them in 20 years :-).

There are any number of solid panel doors 100+ with at least 8" bottom
rails that are still just fine--there are three within view of the desk
here where I currently sit in here that will turn 100 within the next
two years. One (the exterior door rather than interior) is actually a
full-length (nearly) single-pane glass with the bottom rail of --well,
let's just measure it, actually, instead of estimating--ok, it's 18".

These are a mixture of Doug fir and SYP.

What's your material?

If you're concerned, only rigidly glue the top half or so; let the rest
float but it'll likely be just fine.

--