Bathroom Wall Cabinet - Door Question

[Larry Gelder]

I'm making a wall cabinet for bathroom. Wood species is Walnut. Overall dimensions are 21" width x 34" length x 8" depth. I've got a set of 10" wide (13/16 thick) book-matched planks for the doors and will inset them in the cabinet. Here's my question. I was going to make breadboard ends on the doors, but do I really need them to stabilize the doors?

Thanks,
Larry

[Todd Burch]

Probably.

You can not stabilize them and hope for the best. An "after the fact" fix, if they did warp, would be to add battens to the inside, either applied with screws or in a sliding dovetail.

Personally, if I had to do "plank" doors, I'd opt for the breadboard ends.

[Kenneth Speed]

I think you should go with the breadboard ends, after all the doors are going to be in a bathroom-humidity city!- . Given the relatively narrow dimension of the doors you shouldn't need to allow a ton of room for expansion.

Ken

[Larry Gelder]

Thanks Todd & Ken.

I was going to attach the bbe with biscuits and only glue the biscuited areas, given the short widths, do you think this method is problematic?

Thanks again

[Todd Burch]

I don't think it would be as good as a real mortise and tenon. You can have better support for just about the full width of the bbe with a tenon than you can with a biscuit, and, you can pin the joint, whereas with a biscuit, that's just not as feasible. You have a lot less mechanical hold with biscuits. For a 10" wide door, you get 3, maybe 4 biscuits, and only one or two of them glued.

My advice? You are using one of the premier cabinet/furniture woods on this project - don't skimp with your joinery!

[Kent A Bathurst]

The bathroom/humidity environment is a point well made, and I agree with Todd re: M&T v. biscuits.

FWIW: I would have a 1/2" deep continuous tenon on the door blank, with a mating groove in the end. Continuous, except it all stops ~ 3/4" from the ends. This provides continuous structural stability across the entire door.

Then, projecting from that continuous tenon are the "real" tenons. For that width, I'd put, say a 3" - 4" tenon in the center. This will be glued. Then, an outboard tenon toward each end of the door - maybe 2" wide, and 1-1/2" - 2" in from the end. This would give you maybe 5" between the tenons. These would be attached via elongated holes in the door, and pegs from behind. In the A&C stuff I do, I use through pegs and drawbore them, but the though-peg appearance may not work for your style and preferences.

As a larger example of what I'm talking about - a 43" x 86" dining table. The continuous tenon and mating groove, and the "real" tenons, have been cut, and I am doing the layout for the "real" mortises. In the center, I have a pair of 2" tenons that are about 3" apart - those were glued with drawbored through pegs, and the others had elongated holes and drawbored through pegs - no glue on them, of course.



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