I'm about to start building drawer fronts and doors for cabinets I'm building for my kitchen. The drawers and doors will be painted, full inset and installed in frameless boxes. I'm looking for advice on which wood to choose for painted doors, drawers etc as well as the minimum thickness I should buy for gluing up the panels.
Thanks.
Well you can paint about anything but polar is often chosen because it is closed grain so it can be finished to a smooth surface, it is pretty easy to work with, and it's relatively inexpensive. You can also use softwood but need to deal with the possible bleed through of resin - a sealer coat of shellac fixes it or a special blocking primer. If it is raised panels, it depends on your cutter for the door frame and how you want the panel to look. Often the panel is the same thickness as the rails and stiles and you make a cut on the back of the panel so it fits into the groove. Another way to do it is for the panel to be flat on the back and then the panel thickness is the rail/stile thickness to the back edge of the groove for the panel. I've also used mdf for painted panels but prefer not to. It saves time preparing the stock but mdf is heavy, nasty to work with, and soaks up paint terribly. But you can make panel inexpensively with it and it can be finished to a good finish, it just takes a coat or two more paint.
Poplar seems to be the wood of choice for paint but much of the poplar you find will be soft and subject to denting, so keep this in mind.
If you can find tulipwood its quite a bit harder with similar characteristics.
Avoid the dark green wood where the resins are.
Hard maple would be my wood of choice for a kitchen owing to its durability.
No expert, but I always use 2-3 coats of oil based primer sanded between coats followed with a quality latex.
I'll be doing the same for our old kitchen cabinets--eventually-- and have a good supply of alder I was planning to use. Anyone with experience working with alder have suggestions etc.??
I would suggest hard maple as stated above. High-quality commercial cabinets are often maple.
Poplar or maple, for the reasons already suggested and because it should be relatively easy to find a good source.
Other than fullly inset doors and drawers and frameless (Euro style) cabinets, you didn't specify whether your door and drawer fronts would be solid panel or rail and stile (or cope and stick).
If you'll be floating a panel within a frame for your doors and larger drawers, then you can probably include some form of plywood or MDF.
I don't know for sure about thickness, but if you're doing a paneled door then 3/4" rails and stiles would allow for a 1/4" panel.
I'm using hard maple in my current diy kitchen upgrade. For paint, rather than a latex topcoat, I'm using a water based alkyd paint from Benjamin Moore. It flattens much nicer than latex rolled, bruised or sprayed. It called Advance and Sherwin Williams has a comparable product. I find it flattens a little better with a roller than brush but YMMV. Using a Turbine HVLP it help to thin a little with water because of the warm air drying the paint prematurely.
There will be only a couple doors, those being for the sink cabinet and one upper (60" wide), the rest will be drawers. Drawer and door style will be Shaker. Seems I could then use Poplar or Maple for the rail and stile, 1/4" MDF or Ply for the full panel and then glue a smaller 1/4" MDF panel to the face of the larger panel to complete the Shaker look. Thoughts?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike Ontko
I use color maple, which is a little cheaper than white maple. It could have sticker stains, heartwood, etc. I have also used sappy cherry if I have some around, because my normal cherry spec does not allow sapwood on the front of the doors.
As for alder, it is a bit soft for the long haul and will eventually show wear. Depending on your tastes and door style, this could be a good thing though...
I do have customers who want mdf flat panels, and one who wants a wood veneer panel so that any grain that telegraphs through the frames matches the door panels. Depends on the paint and finish schedule, I guess.
Last year I built my entire garage cabinets and want to minimize the cost to a minimum so I used poplar for rails and stiles with 1/4 MDF for the panel. I used General Finishes White Poly as top coat and also the GF white primer. It's very easy to spray with my Earlex 5500 HVLP. After the first gallon of GF white primer, I tried the Kilz primer from Home Depot and thin with water and still get the same result as the GF white primer which is more expensive. I did sand between coats from primer. If you want white cabinets, try General Finishes White Poly.
Mike
Shaker I would use plywood for the panel or possibly MDF if you can get it with the smooth finish on both sides and you have a good vacuum on your saw for the dust. It would also be more consistent with a piano smooth type finish. I've successfully used luan for panels in flat panel doors but they are sloppy loose. I caulked them in place and then sprayed the door with Resisthane tinted white after using their white sprayable stain blocking primer (the rail and stile were softwood with some knots). These were shop cabinets so I was experimenting but the result was better than expected. They still wouldn't be nice enough for the kitchen for my wife but they were pretty good. Actual 1/4 inch plywood would look better and also allow you to put a little glue in the panel slots to make the door stronger.
Poplar is mostly used in budget jobs and by guys building on-site as it's a cheap material that's easy to work with….not a great material for kitchen cabinetry however. Much too soft and light to make good quality doors/fronts…..at least IMHO. Hard maple is a much better quality material, but more expensive and somewhat wasted on something that will be painted. Best bet in my opinion is soft maple, less expensive than hard maple and slightly easier to machine, but still way harder and more substantial than poplar.
good luck,
jeffD
+1Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Duncan
Soft maple without culling the colored heartwood. I'll do soft maple with a MDF panel, unless solid wood panel is requested. We don't have hard maple available in the south without special order. People wanting to really cut cost ask for poplar, which is much softer, like alder. It paints really well, but is more prone to dings.
Painted.
In the kitchen.
I'd go with 1/2 " Baltic Birch plywood.