Lamination Thickness for Curved Door Rails
Advice on specifying the laminations for gluing up a curved (bow front) door rail. June 16, 2014
Question (WOODWEB Member) :
I am making some radius doors and need to make some curved rails from solid oak. Any guidance on what thickness of lamels to use?
Forum Responses
(Cabinetmaking Forum)
From contributor L:
Without knowing what radius I don't know the answer. A fair place to start would be 1/8". Not thin enough and you will have spring back, too thin and it actually can pull in to a tighter radius.
From Contributor G:
3/32 is a very good starting point - very little chance of spring-back.
From contributor L:
Contributor G - you cheat me by 1/32! But 3/32" is a good start I have to agree. It still depends on radius. We are doing another bank job with a bunch of curved panels on the teller stations. The panels are removable to get to the wiring so they have to maintain their shape without help. Made hollow with thin face and back plies, curved ribs, cherry veneered.
From Contributor G:
Remember the glue takes up some room too.
From the original questioner:
Sorry I should have mentioned the doors have a 450mm radius. I used some 4mm/3/16 but had problems with it not being pliable enough.
From contributor L:
3/16 is pretty thick especially at that radius. Try Contributor G's 3/32. I think there is a calculator here at WOODWEB that has the recommended thicknesses for various radii.
From contributor M:
For cold laminating I'd do 2mm for that radius. No PVAa glue.
From the original questioner:
Well we have gone for 2.5 and Titebond 3.
