[farmall]

Howdy fellow dust junkies. I had a day off today and made nice progress on my cabinets. I am making plans for the finishing touches and thinking about drawer fronts. I am planning to make a box for the drawer and then attach a finished, solid pin oak front to the box. I have the material to make the fronts a solid, natural piece of wood but am wondering if I would be better off to have a front made of multiple pieces glued up. Would there be any advantage to taking the solid piece, rip it and glue it back up in the same orientation that it was? They will be 6-8 inches tall and 18" wide. Thanks in advance.

 

[Sawdustguy]

I typically try to make them one piece unless they are tall drawers and I do not have stock wide enough, usually over 6" requires me to do a glue up for a drawer front.

George

 

[BernieL]

Since drawer fronts get screwed on rather then glued on - solid is OK and preferred. I see no advantage to sawing and regluing.

 

[farmall]

Solid it is. Thanks guys.

 

[Brian T.]

Once upon a time, long ago and very far away, I was in a wood science research lab in a forestry sciences building. Every drawer front in every drawer in the entire building was made of a different wood and they were all labelled!

 

[Chris Curl]

so I guess the lesson here for me is that ripping and regluing does not help with the problem of the wood changing sizes due to the seasons?

 

[ryan50hrl]

For this purpose if leave them solid....but in other uses ripping and regluing can minimize warping in plain sawn wood if you alternate the growth ring directions. Rift sawn and quarter sawn are less be benefitted by this process.

 

[Steve Neul]

Properly done it really doesn't matter if they are solid or glue up. I've worked for shops that had a person scrounge around for scraps and glue them up into panels to be made into drawer fronts.

 

[Hammer1]

so I guess the lesson here for me is that ripping and regluing does not help with the problem of the wood changing sizes due to the seasons?

Wood will still move across the width, sawing it doesn't change that fact. What is important is lumber selection. The particular characteristics of individual boards or pieces of them determines in what situations they should or should not be used. There may be no issues with a 23" wide board of certain characteristics and there can be a nightmare of problems with a 6" wide board with other characteristics. Although you can academically describe some of these positive or negative properties, it's really experience, learning to see and what to look for that makes the difference in what you use where and why.

 

[frankp]

I'm going to say that drawer fronts should be what you design, whether a glue up or solid. I have some that I've glued up with accent strips, some I've glued up just for grain orientation/pattern issues, and some I've left solid. It's all relative to the design, not a particular standard.