Talked with a retired cabinetmaker at my local lumberyard and he changed how I think about face frames

I was at Highland Hardware in Atlanta last Saturday picking up some cherry and this old timer named Ron started chatting me up at the counter. He saw the wood I was grabbing and asked what I was building, I said a kitchen with shaker style doors and a simple face frame. He kinda laughed and said I was overbuilding the face frames, that I should be using 1x material instead of 3/4 inch ply for the stiles because it lets the wood move naturally and looks better over time. I argued with him for a minute because I've always used ply for stability, but he showed me a photo of a job he did in 1989 that still looked perfect with solid poplar. Now I'm sitting here second guessing my whole process. Has anyone else had an old timer completely flip your approach to face frames?

2 comments

2 Comments

brians2717d ago

Did you ask him how he deals with the seasonal movement on a cabinet that's 36 inches wide or more? I've always heard that solid wood stiles can twist and cup over time if you don't let them breathe, especially in a kitchen with all the steam and temp changes. A cabinetmaker I used to work with would only use poplar if it was ripped and glued up a certain way, with the grain going a specific direction on each stile. Ron might have a trick for that like cutting his stiles an inch oversized and letting them stabilize in the shop for a week before he assembles anything.

seanperry17d ago

Yeah that oversized stiles trick is exactly what I ended up doing on a big pantry cabinet I built last year, it was almost 40 inches wide and I was nervous about it. I cut my poplar stiles about an inch and a half oversized and just left them sitting on a shelf in my shop for maybe 10 days before I even touched them again. A couple of them did bow a little but after I jointed them flat and ripped them to final size they stayed put. I also started gluing up my stiles with the heart side alternating on each piece, which I think helps balance the pull a bit. Not saying it's foolproof but for me it's been way better than just ripping and assembling right away.