I'm trying to better understand wood movement so I can make better designs and not overengineer when I don't need to.
My current question is about solid wood panels in small sizes (e.g. for box making, a current infatuation of mine). Let's say I am framing a solid wood panel in a mitered frame for a box top. If the panel is only 3" x 10" (or less), will it move enough to cause the mitered frame around it to fail? Will a spline key fix the potential problem, or is it always best to engineer expansion areas with the use of grooves, etc.?
I'm doing a number of small, shallow boxes, and trying to figure out if I can get away with gluing solid tops into mitered frames.