Is there a current industry standard for panel thickness in shaker doors (or any 5 piece door with flat center panel)?

Those of you making 5 piece doors with 1/4"+/- center panels.. is it an ongoing struggle getting tooling to match up with readily available panels from your suppliers?

What core do you use on your veneered center panels? ply, mdf, particle?

Thanks

Normally on a painted recessed panel project I use 3/8" MDF panels so I can run them through my panel shaper to get the proper sized tongue that fits nicely in the groove. Since I make most of my doors and drawer fronts 13/16" I use a 1/2" MDF panel on my drawer fronts so the back of the panel is flush with the frame of the drawer front so when a handle is put on it doesn't pull the panel back from the groove and possibly crack the paint.

With a stained job I use solid wood instead of a man made material for the panel and I make it whatever thickness that works for the job.

Hi Leo, thanks for the info. We do 1 Pc MDF for anything that's paint grade.

Curious what others do when building stain grade doors with veneered panels that don't allow for back cutting.

The term 'shaker' is being misused. In the interest of accuracy, you are talking about doors with flat panels. Panels with no raise. Maybe a back cut (back relief), but a flat face.

They are not Shaker doors, since there is no industry definition, and the Shakers are not exactly granting naming rights. But in a show of respect for the craft, it is better to merely accurately describe what you are doing rather than attaching names that are inappropriate.

One can call them Armenian panels if you like, but it is not good communications.

So, you are asking about flat panels. Nothing more.

If you look at real Shaker furniture, they often raised a panel on one side so it would be thin enough to fit into the plows in the stiles and rails. This is considered more efficient than planing the entire panel to thickness. This was functional, not decorative. To avoid appearing decorative, the raised panel was then turned to the inside of the cabinet.

Hi David. First of all, I've got nothing but respect for you and have learned a lot over the years reading your posts and responses.. But let's be honest, any professional woodworker on this forum should know what I mean when I say shaker door.

Ever type "shaker door" into google? The definition seems to have changed slightly since the 1700's.

We know, but words matter
David is just trying to keep us from bastardizing our own job.

What is commonly referred to as shaker, we just call square, flat panel. If a designer/customer/whoever calls it shaker, I reply as square sticking.

Stain grade door that don’t allow for back cutting.

Paint grade: We use flat 3/8” mdf, 5/8” mdf raised panels (unless someone specs 13/16” doors then we go with 3/4” mdf)

Stain grade: 1/2”(it’s always less) flat

All of them are back cut with either the slightly round back cutter or square on the shaper or a dado set on the ts.

We never use 1/4”. It drums/rattles and makes for very light doors.

1/4” nice veneer plywood comes very thin.

I believe Freeborn has a smaller tenon than 1/4” cutter. It should overlap the shoulder cutters like a dado set. You shim them to fit the panel.

Karl- Fair enough.
The designers we work with often misuse terminology. To them there is no difference between a rail and stile, and bevel and chamfer can be used interchangeably. I tend not to correct it as there's no real benefit to me, and I can still understand what their design intent is.

Adam- What thickness are your doors that use a 1/2" flat panel? Do you have custom tooling for this? Or are you saying you make these from solid and back cut to fit in a 1/4" groove?

Chris,

We mostly use Freeborn brazeon with a 1/4” thick 1/2” long tenon.

We back cut the 1/2” veneer plywood to fit in a 3/4” finish thickness door. The plywood is less than 1/2” so you don’t sand into the panel.

Chris - You are the expert. It is expected that you use proper terms and labels and not just parrot what you hear. You can and should educate your customer, not by lecture but by example. Knowing correct terminology and names indicates you are a professional woodworker that has spent some time learning about his craft.

If I let the customer determine the names of things, then I'll put on the drawings "expensive, curly thing, but not the real expensive curly thing" to describe a detail. This means nothing to most people, and has nothing to do with effective communications.

In the future when someone walks into your shop wanting a Shaker replica, then you get to talk about Shaker doors. Otherwise, they are flat panel, my opinion.

Or maybe in an attempt to please everyone you just call them "shaker style"... who knows. Im with Karl, I understand both sides, however I have enough work in my world to remain profitable and just get them to make a decision and process deposit and progress payments that if I see fit to enter into a jousting match with a kitchen designer or customer pulling from Pinterest and HGTV my workload (and hence my billable hours) will increase to where I wont get the job anyway.

We run 1/4" panels on narrow/budget doors but for whatever reason most of our cabs wind up being 2 door so the panels are typically fairly narrow. 1/4" MDF is dead on for us and stain grade we run 1/4" domestic which is pretty darn close to good on the fit and they are both glued in anyway so there is never a rattle. Higher quality is 1/2 with rebate, best is solid wood panels rebate, flush on the back side through the sander.

Its a balance between making work and having educational banter with the customer. Most of my customers would come back with "Oh, thats just what I saw them called, call them whatever you want, I just want some flipping cabinets with flat doors because they are supposedly less expensive" and then they would likely leave labeling me an uptight PITA.

Early on in the 80s we just called them recessed panel or flat panel we even did back panel (the worst). Yes opposed to Raised panels they were considered lower costing, some folks turned noses up at the suggestion. I gravitated to the Craftsman styles found in older homes and built many jobs in the style. Then folks started using the Shaker name for a style, like I want a shaker crown molding on these cabinets. The examples were pretty close to what I was already doing so it didn't matter to me what they called it. I typically would take the time to educate the clients so they could make intelligent decisions. Most of my Craftsman / Shaker doors had larger stiles and rails typically 3" when possible and many had split panels doors as well.

Call it what they prefer, take the money.

The worst was a maker working on what he called a "shaker entertainment center"!

After some thought, I reasoned that he might be making an ax or a shovel.

But no, I was wrong. Again. It was a large cabinet to house TV, stereo, etc. The maker's dilemma was what the "shaker crown" molding would look like.

This is Shaker crown. Essentially a flat crown.

Sorry about the low res picture, it's a crop of a much larger picture.

View larger image

So, since the Shakers did not embellish furniture and cabinet works, personally I have never seen an example of a Period Shaker crown molding. The flat crown Leo shows is what has become known as a Shaker crown in modern day times.

Sadly, I am aware of "shaker crown" or "Shaker crown".

Fortunately, I have never been asked to use it.

The photos attached are of some crown we made out of Martin Guitar scrap for a sort of Arts and Crafts kitchen. Not enough solids to make much, but we used the hell out of the veneer.

View higher quality, full size image (3456 X 2304)

View higher quality, full size image (2592 X 1944)

Chris,
To answer you tooling question for these type doors (won’t call out a name for fear of being scolded).
I’ve always used adjustable groovers for the sticking and stacked groovers or rebate heads for the stub tenon or tenoning depending on what I am making. Same for house doors. This allows total control of groove size.
I also have a 3 piece set with a adjustable groover for the center if I want to machine the whole edge. My S4S parts are very clean though so just use a single adj groover most of the time.