Grain Direction

[newt]

Hi Folks some advice please

I am building a small Linen Cupboard in oak, the plans are in a book"the home guide to woodwork by Chris Simpson" It is free standing a metre high by 400mm wide. At the top are 2 centre opening doors each one roughly square 150 by150, below that is a fall down door again square 300 by 300, below that is a drawer 100 high by 300 wide and finally another drawer 150 by 300. I understand that the general convention is that the grain runs along the longest dimension therefore the drawers will have the grain horizontal. But what do you think about the doors they are solid 20mm oak should the grain run horizontal, I guess as they are square I could see how they look before I fix. All the doors and drawers are flush fitted. I just wondered if there was a convention given this situation. At this point in the project I could deviate from the plans and make the door rectangular, what do you think.

 

[Wanlock Dod]

Making all of the faces out of a single panel would give continuity of the grain right the way through the piece, but might only work if the drawers have false fronts.

If you're having proper drawers that wouldn't work, so I'd be tempted to go for horizontal grain throughout, or do something else with the door perhaps a frame and really nicely figured panel. Horizontal grain might not match with the sides of the piece.

Cheers,

Dod

 

[Steve Maskery]

Hi Newt
Good question.
I always think that square doors look squat. OK in a cubist design I guess, but for normal domestic furniture, rectangles are usually easier on the eye, IMHO.

I would make the doors Golden and the drawer spacing to follow Hambridge (or at least a modified version of Hambridge). There's some Googling for you. If you have back issues of GW I have written about these things over the last year or so.

HTH
Steve

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Newt,

I think it all depends whether you want to make a feature of the grain pattern and what, at the end of the day, looks "right" to you. If you look at this link of some of Krenov's cabinets http://jameskrenov.com/furniture.htm he often makes a feature of the grain pattern on the doors (usually veneers I believe). If you put your mouse over the black and white sketches at the bottom, you can see that on the third cabinet from the right, he has deliberately made the grain pattern horizontal because that showed the veneer to best effect. However, given that your cabinet has several doors and drawers you might need to be a bit careful straying from the conventional way of doing it.

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[engineer one]

i always thought that doors should have vertical grain in both the uprights and the panel, if the door is frame and panel.

drawers should be horizontal. of course a lot depends upon the
strength of the grain pattern.

i also agree with steve that square doors are a no no, should be slightly
rectangular.

paul :wink:

 

[David C]

Conventional hinges will only work well with vertical grain.

David C

 

[garywayne]

Hi newt.

You may also notice on Paul's link, that the third image from the left has vertical grained doors, and horizontal grained draw front, (or what looks like a draw front to me).

 

[woodbloke]

Newt - I agree with Steve here, doors that are square don't look right, better to make a pair where each follows the 'Golden Section' or as close to it as you can accommodate, in which case the grain ought to run vertically.
Paul - Great link to JK's site, I see what you mean about the 3rd cabinet, the grain does appear to be horizontal, but the overall effect of the piece is stunning as it's a pair of flush doors where the whole cabinet appears to conform to the 'Golden Rectangle' proportion (I think), so the lines of it are not broken by a panel framework - Rob