[OP]
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I'm looking for recommendations on the best lumber dimensions to buy to build my kitchen cabinet face frames, drawer fronts, and doors? Rails will be 1-1/2 inches wide; stiles will be 2 inches.
Width: 1x6's or 1x8's? Combination of both or what?
Length: six or eight feet? Any other input/insight is appreciated. Thanks Lewis
Contributor
Hi Lewis, I often buy "shorts" from my local sawmill, they have them in 4 and 3 foot lengths, and they're half the price per board foot than 8 or 10 foot lengths.
For rails and stiles they're ideal...................Regards, Rod.
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Wouldn't you be better off using euro hinges and overlay doors and not have face frames.?
http://goo.gl/qABJr
.. If walking is good for your health, the postman would be immortal.
Not if he wants frames which I assume he doesOriginally Posted by Brian Jarnell
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From the choices you present I assume you are buying lumber at the BORG or one of the 'lumber yards' that is a glorified BORG. Simple math can give you an answer as to yield versus board cost. You don't mention your material of choice which would vary my answer if I were recommending stock from a lumber yard. For some woods, the less milling you have to do, the less chance of tension release leading to an increase in spoil. That is, if my yard had 4/4 mahogany available I would be tempted to select boards from that as opposed to buying a 12/4 board and re-sawing to get my final dimensions. Also, although there can be a greater increase in figure and coloration between boards, narrower boards cost less at my yard in general. Sorry, I am home sick today and seem to have just started blathering. Hope there was something helpful in there somewhere.
Last edited by glenn bradley; 09-14-2011 at 7:41 PM.
"A hen is only an egg's way of making another egg".
– Samuel Butler
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Hi Lewis, That seems awfully narrow for rails and stiles. If you are making overlay doors you'll get into trouble with 2" stiles where hinges go back to back. They'll end up nearly interfering with each other. We've always used 2-1/4" as a minimum for stiles. 1-1/2" will make a "delicate" looking rail as well and will leave drawer fronts covering the entire rail.
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To figure out widths, I usually use Final width+saw kerf+3/8" (for jointing, etc, wiggle room)=rough width. So for 2" stiles, I'd look for 5'+ stock, which would indicate 1X6 stock. 1X8 would split for 3 pieces of 1 1/2" plus jointing. Remember that as you split boards tension is going to be released, things are going to move both at the time of ripping and later as the boards adjust to their new skinnier selves. For best quality work you need to have room to get rid of that bow and twist. Problem with any 1X stick is that most of it is already below 3/4", most of it is not very flat to say the least, and most of it comes with a poor surface quality. Now I know plenty of guys grab 1X stock off the shelf, chop it up and make cabinets, but that isn't really the way I've ben trained to work. Its hard to make nice square frames and openings starting with material that is not square and flat.
So I would suggest getting the capacity to mill stock for making FF cabinets, or outsourcing the frames from some where like Rockler or Conestoga. If you can mill stock with a jointer and planer, you can source 4/4 rough or hit and miss planed and generally flatten it to 3/4" over standard cabinet dimension lengths. Or pick the best lumber you can and roll the dice, but with that I have little more advice.
As for lengths, that really depends on your cabinet widths. Generally, if I am going to bother to make the cabinets myself, they are going to have longer runs of boxes connected by a single frame, which will involve a variety of rail lengths. The beauty of custom cabinets is that seamless built in look IMO. Standard cabinets are made to the dimensions they are to make it easy to fill a kitchen with off the shelf boxes screwed together at the seems. But this is rarely the best decision for aesthetics, just a convenient and cost effective way for factories to operate. You really need to have a design, and complete set of shop drawings ready before beginning construction, d=from these you can make a cut list of lengths and widths, from this list you can start to optimize your stock sizes. I wont even consider buying lumber for a project the size of a kitchen until I have the plans developed fully.
As an alternative you my be able to buy flattened material from a cabinet, millwork, or lumber milled to the dimensions you need, ready to cut to final length. The place I work does that for small shops and individuals pretty regularly, I'm sure there are places in most locations that do similarly, or would be willing to given the current state of the economy, and it may cost similar to the 1X from the big box store.
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All the cabinets in my older home were built with 1X2 stock, which measures 1 3/4" actual. Rails, stiles, all 1 3/4". They are 3/8" overlay, 3/8" inset, and it works fine. I replace all the doors n a light and dirty overhaul a few years back, using amerock hinges with a "finial" look. You could go to 1/2" overlay with 2" stiles. This does put the hinges back to back when opposing swings meet at a rail, but if space is tight the doors will swing at those dimensions. But its really worth drawing the whole thing up, sometimes you can design out the opposing swing intersections, or at least make those particular stiles a bit wider to gain necessary clearance.
For rails, 1 1/2" with 1/2" overlay drawer fronts would give 1/2" overlay---1/2" space----next 1/2" overlay---etc in a drawer bank or top drawer/bottom door situation which IME looks fine, almost approaching a Euro cab look with minimal frame showing. Assuming mid stiles are also 1 1/2" it can be a very balanced look. I'm actually on a job now with 1" rails almost everywhere, 1/4" overlay drawer fronts, it looks great, like an old shaker cabinet. The stiles are all 2" but the doors are inset. Not sure I'm sold on mixing overlay drawers with beaded inset doors, but its not going in my house, so it looks great from my porch, as they say!
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