Need Woodworking Repair Advice (Cabinets)

[TucsonJim]

When GDRV installed the cabinets in our 2017 Reflection 297RSTS, the wood was not kiln dried and must have been very wet. Over the years, I had a lot of problems with the cabinets shrinking in the dry hot Arizona weather. When the rig was about one year old, Grand Design replaced all the cabinets due to shrinkage that caused a lot of cosmetic damage. But they did not replace the cabinet doors or drawer fronts.

On our last trip, we noticed that several of the cabinet doors have shrunk by about 5%. On one of them, the door split where two pieces were glued together. I want to repair this seam, but need some woodworking advice. I'm going to post several photos below. Please note that the panel will slide in the outer frame. So I can slide the two pieces together. Here are some questions I have:

1. What type of glue should I use?
2. Since the panels are surrounded by a "frame", I can't figure out a way to clamp the pieces together while the glue is drying. Does anyone have any ideas on how I can align and clamp the two panels together? Not only do the panels slide back and forth, but they also have some play up and down.

I slid the two pieces apart to show the size of the gap.

In this view, I slid the two panels together. Note that they also have movement up and down which makes alignment more difficult.

A fiew from the back of the cabinet door.

On this door, you can see a significant amount of unstained wood at the side of the panels. This gives a good representation of how much the doors have shrunk over the last few years.

Thanks for your suggestions.

Jim

[boyscout]

Jim, I'm by no means the woodworking expert you're looking for but in thinking about clamping the following came to mind.

If it was my challenge I might put some small screws into the back of both pieces of the door panel and then use wires or strings tensioned around the screws to pull and hold the pieces together. Get some diagonals going to keep it aligned. Then when the glue was dry remove the screws and fill the holes.

I used a lot of glue years ago when remodeling our house and came to like and trust a glue called Titebond.

Good luck.

[Calbar]

Thanks for your suggestions.

Hi Jim,

I have built some cabinets many years ago for my bathroom. For glue I would go to something like a Lepages No More Nails or Gorilla Wood Glue. You could also try a specialty wood working shop and get a good wood glue from there but either of the first 2 would work well.

As for clamping the only thing that I can think of right now is to us Mark's boyscout idea but my concern here would be that clamping at the back may not hold the front together well enough. Ideally if you could take off one of the side pieces and clamp that way but that may cause you other issues/damage taking it apart. Strange that they also slide back and forth. Trying to think of a way to take advantage of that.

Sorry that I don't have a better idea for clamping.

Rob

[Guest]

TucsonJim

Jim,
You may be able to bore a few holes in the side panel to install free floating dowels to push on the panels for a test fit. Then follow up with wood glue and clamp between the end frame and the dowels with some pipe clamps and length of angle iron. Afterward bore to fit a larger dowel, glue, trim and stain the dowels.
Removing the side trim would be great but its pin nailed so it may be impossible to do this.

Being in AZ you may need to provide some humidity in the dry months. Cabinets should also not be installed green.

Jim

[howson]

TucsonJim -- one of my favorite YouTube channels (Project Farm) had an episode on wood glues. If you haven't watched his videos, I suspect you'll enjoy them, too.

[Yoda]

Thanks for your suggestions.

Titebond III would be my choice. But clean any ooze out immediately. Now to get the panel together there is a way and a hard way to do it right. The screws above will work, but I would use some clamps to pull together and one against the face to maintain flatness.. If it was me I would use wood blocks hot glued to the back and then the clamps. You can remove the hot glue later (hairdryer)

Now if you have thin enough tools you could pull the face molding (long one first), remove the panel and use biscuits and clamps. To stain the edges(assuming you have matching stain), remove the doors, slide the panel fully one way, use a Q-tip to stain, let dry and slide the panel the other way and repeat.

The best way is remove the doors and take to good cabinet shop - have then repair and stain match. Warning - be sure the DW does not see what they can do for replacement doors.

Hope this helps - Keith

[Country Campers]

Jim

Fetch that trailer out here to Pa. you will have all the tools you will need in my work shop at your disposal.

I might even help.

Brian

[Tom in PGH]

Whatever you decide to do, be careful with the glue. You don’t want any excess getting into the area between the panel and the door frame. When I have made doors, the panel is cut smaller than the opening (groove) that it will be put into. I insert some small soft rubber balls (available at Rockler and probably Amazon, and made for this purpose) around the edge of the panel. This gives adequate room for the panel to expand with the changes in humidity that happen with the changes in seasons.

I don’t use any glue at all where the panel contacts the frame.

I’m not sure why your panel cracked, like it did. If it was free-floating, there would not have been any reason for it to crack. It would have shrank up in the drier times and expanded to fully fill the gap around the frame when the humidity increased. I’m thinking that someone got some glue in around the edge of the panel and it was held in place at the outside edges, then pulled apart at the seam as that would probably be the weakest point, if the panel joint didn’t receive enough glue when it was assembled. Either that, or the stiles (left and right edges of the frame) were milled too tight and were grabbing the outside edge of the panel and pulled it apart at the seam.

[TucsonJim]

Jim

Fetch that trailer out here to Pa. you will have all the tools you will need in my work shop at your disposal.

I might even help.

Brian

LOL. A new door is probably around $50. Fuel to PA and back = $gajillion.

[Yoda]

LOL. A new door is probably around $50. Fuel to PA and back = $gajillion.

Country Campers
I think Brian's is the best idea

But think of all the things you can see and do along the way.

Keith

[Cate&Rob]

Jim

Fetch that trailer out here to Pa. you will have all the tools you will need in my work shop at your disposal.

I might even help.

Brian

I am going to go with Brian’s suggestion. I will come along to assist (or at least I will bring the beer) . . if they ever let me out of Canada .

Seriously though . . . the panel in the door is obviously “free floating” as it is supposed to be to prevent damage from being attached to the stronger frame . . . and yet, it still split. Your Arizona weather is obviously tough on things in ways the rest of us don’t deal with.

Rob

[Second Chance]

. . if they ever let me out of Canada .

Rob

You're better off where you are right now...

(Another Rob)

[boyscout]

. . if they ever let me out of Canada .

You're better off where you are right now.

(Another) Rob you are seriously underestimating the impact on health of having the means to escape winter and being unable to do so. We got our first snow last night, about an inch, with fierce cold winds. Covid's a treat compared to that.

[TucsonJim]

Update:

I ordered some Elmer's Wood Glue Max and received it this afternoon. This was one of the highly rated glues on howson's video.

I tried attaching clamping blocks with hot glue, but they wouldn't hold up to the clamping force. So I used a combination of ideas from all your your responses. I screwed two pieces of wood to the back of the panel, inserted the glue, clamped the pieces and cleaned up any excess that squeezed out. I got great clamping and it came together in the front side quite well. I'll remove and fill the screw holes tomorrow and touch up any stain that needs it.

Thanks all.

[Country Campers]

TucsonJim

Looks like you are making good progress. The problem with clamping from the back , as you may have found out , is it tends to "twist" the wood panels allowing the front to not close the gap perfectly. The only way to achieve this would be to remove the raised panel. If it were easy to remove the pin nails in the corners , I am guessing that they are driven thru a tenon joint , you could possibly remove a style or rail to remove the panel. This may cause a little more work than it is worth though.

Brian