Keepsake box - Build plus lid question

[Paul Button]

Hi,

I'm building a keepsake box for my wife for Christmas. The lid will be made like a picture frame with a floating panel in the middle. I know that if I used a veneer glued to plywood, I could make it a tight fitting panel, but I used a solid piece from a neighbors fallen tree. Since it's a solid piece, I know that it needs room for expansion. The pieces for the lid are just dry fit for now but I can tell that the center panel will slide around. What should I do to prevent this? My thought is to use a couple small pieces of flexible vinyl tubing in each side of the picture framing. This would hold the panel in place, but since the vinyl tubing is flexible it should allow for wood expansion.

Any other ideas? What is the standard practice for this? I've included a couple pictures just to show the lid top dry fit. Obviously nothing is finished yet.

Thank you,
Paul20171218_172959.jpg20171218_173027.jpg20171218_173015.jpg

[Paul Button]

Why are my pictures showing upside down?

[Jim Tobias]

Paul,
The tubing you suggested may very well work fine. It seems any flexible material that can expand or contract as the panels swells seasonally should work fine.
They do make "spaceballs" for this very use.
http://www.widgetco.com/space-balls?...SAAEgLPXvD_BwE

No personal connection...just the first link that came up.
Very nice box , by the way!

Jim

[Nathan Johnson]

Space balls is the absolute perfect name for those little buggers.

[Paul Button]

Thank you very much, I'll check them out.


Paul

[glenn bradley]

I use space balls but, find them too large for some operations and cutting them in half makes them clumsy to use. For small boxes with floating panels I squirt a small blobs of silicone rubber glue in the groove, assemble the frame and adjust the panel so that it is centered. Once the glue cures there is a flexible centering effect. I have done this with larger horizontal panels as well like dresser tops.

GnG Low CoD (205).jpg . GnG Low CoD (291).jpg

[Paul Button]

I was actually thinking about using silicone like you did but I didn't think it would be flexible enough. Glad to see that it works.

That dresser is amazing! I wish I could get to that level but if not, I'll still have fun along the way.

[Joe A Faulkner]

The panel is unlikely to expand appreciably length-wise, so if you put a small bead of silicone just on the ends that might be sufficient. You could also glue the panel on one side only or in the middle of both ends. I'd probably opt for the later - fix the middle of the panel to the middle of the frame and let it "float" from the middle out.

[Stan Calow]

I use small beads of caulk, whatever I've got an open tube of.

[Paul Button]

All great suggestions, thank you!