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PSA: A cabinetmaker in Grand Rapids told me to stop gluing my dado joints and it's bugging me
I was at a shop swap meet in Grand Rapids last month and got talking to a guy who's been building face frame cabinets for 31 years. I mentioned I glue and clamp every dado in my cabinet boxes because that's how I was taught, and he just shook his head and said "you're gluing yourself into a corner, kid." He explained that glue in a dado locks the joint so tight that when the wood moves with the seasons, the stress has nowhere to go and it cracks right at the shoulder, especially on wider boxes. He said he stopped gluing dados back in 2011 after losing $3,800 on a kitchen run in Kalamazoo where six boxes split within one heating season. His method is glue only the front and back of the joint and let the middle float, which sounds backwards but he swears by it. I tried it on two maple boxes in my shop and honestly the joints still feel rock solid with no movement. Now I'm second guessing every cabinet I've built for the last 4 years. Has anyone else heard this or tried the float method on their dado joints?
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jessica_ross3827d ago
Same reason they tell you not to glue tongue and groove flooring, wood needs to breathe.
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