Cracks in my painted mitered flat paneled cabinet

10 years ago

I'm renovating/updating virtually everything in my 1930's lannon stone house including gutting the kitchen. Per my contractor's recommendation I hired a company to make and install custom made kitchen and master bathroom cabinets. My general made a point that I deal directly with the cabinet guys.

So I hired the company and requested painted cabinets. The pertinent part of the contract follows:
"Painted Kitchen Cab. full overlay construction. Mitered flat panel doors, dovetailed wooden drawer boxes..."
Here's the problem: at least 1/3 of the cabinet doors, which I asked them to paint white dove have cracks between the joints after less than a month after installation. Now, I am a total rehab novice, but what I've gathered from a previous thread is that one should not miter painted cabinet doors because of a cracking issue. I didn't even know what "mitered" meant until I looked it up today.

The head honcho cabinet maker has not been to my home lately, sending his underlings to finish the job, such as install crown molding... I pointed out the issue to the installers and they said it was my problem since I did not have central air conditioning. The cabinets were installed in mid June, and we have had a very cool summer so far in Chicago, although not without a few hot weeks. Coincidentally, my brand new SpacePak central air system is finished and being hooked up this week. Never the less, it is unrealistic to think that my home will be a constant 68 degrees year round for the sake of my cabinets. I love fresh air!

I want to cry, these cabinets are really expensive and yes, I've paid for 90% of the total cost, which they requested after the majority of the cabinetry was installed.

It is absolutely unacceptable that my new kitchen and master bath cabinets have cracks after one month. I expect these cabinet to last 30 years, not 30 days.
How do I approach the cabinet maker about this. Is it realistic to ask him to replace all the cabinet panels in a different, non cracking, way? How should he have made them? What argument can I use?

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Comments (7)

deedles
10 years ago
From memory I think the answers are going to be mostly in the 'painted wood will have cracks as the wood shrinks and swells'. I seem to remember that MDF doors don't have this problem.
iheartgiantschnauzer
10 years ago
Unfortunately I think deedles is right. I also think i remember reading paint on slab front doors is not usually advised... I'm not sure there is much you can do. Maybe someone else will have better news.
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Re: MDF I have to laugh at myself for not thinking of this. When I was more active as a woodworker, it was standard practice to say this stuff should never, ever be used in a wet location, but I currently have some scrap that has been sitting outside my shop, in the rain and snow for three weeks, and it looks almost as good as new. I guess this makes sense, since it's 98 percent waterproof glue. The tiny amount of humidity in my bath isn't going to ruin a well painted MDF cabinet door. Excellent suggestion. Extra points for it being the cheapest option, but I do half to deduct a couple points because I will have to lift the 100 lb sheets onto my saw... (considering 1/2 inch...)
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From the attached link: Raised Panel - Solid Even though the panel is called solid, it is not usually made of a single piece of wood. Wood expands and contracts with changes in humidity, and this can cause the door to split and crack. To counteract the problems of natural movement in a solid wood center panel, the panel is usually constructed using several pieces of solid stock lumber glued together. The wood strips used to construct the panel may not all match in graining and color. As in the case of the slab door, the door's strength comes from the manner in which the pieces of solid wood are reversed as they are glued. The panel is then cut on all four sides, so the center is higher than the edges. The face of the panel is usually flush with the front surface of the stiles and rails, with the edges forming a tongue which fits a corresponding groove cut into the door frame. The groove is slightly larger than the panel's edge to allow the panel to float in the frame. This simply means that the panel has room to expand and contract during humidity changes, reducing the risk of the panel cracking or splitting. I gather from the Woodmode site that this is how they construct raised panel doors as they describe their raised panel doors as being constructed from solid wood. How big an issue the movement of the centre panel in a flat panel door will be probably depends on geography (I have seen some dramatic examples here that am sure would not be acceptable to many folks while I tend to think the hairline cracking I have seen is part of the charm and patina of age of painted cabinetry. In terms of Woodmode they do kiln dry all their wood which may in part explain why they have not have felt they would get better performance from an MDF centre panel that some companies are opting for. I also think it is a market issue a lot of Consumer's in the US have a real aversion to composite wood products regardless of the possible benefits (this does not really carry over to Europe or Canada). Cabico and many other Quebec companies offer 100% MDF doors for paint finishes (same opaque finishes are usually available on maple at Cabico). Lots of their MDF door styles are raised panel. Here is a link that might be useful: Explanation of door styles
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Well...the ones at the joints are, from what I gather, a hazard with painted cabinets. However, I don't know about the horizontal one in your first picture. Pros out there - can you please weigh in on (1) painted cabinets and cracks and (2) what's up with the horizontal crack in the first picture? Meanwhile, here are some threads that discuss hairline cracks at the joints of panted cabinets. BTW...it's not the cabinets that are cracked, it's the paint when the joints expand & contract. http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/3533509/is-the-horizontal-crack-a-normal-wear-for-painted-cabinet-door?n=19 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2937153/help-why-are-my-cabinets-cracking?n=11 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2416477/hairline-cracks-painted-cabinets?n=1 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2696601/painted-cabinets-and-hairline-cracks-at-joint-line?n=6 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2472701/cabinets-with-painted-finish-cracks?n=6 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2670445/cracks-in-my-painted-mitered-flat-paneled-cabinet?n=7 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2701506/will-painted-cabinets-crack?n=3 http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2689626/help-factory-painted-cabinets-cold-climate-humidity-and-cracking?n=6
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springroz
10 years ago
I call it patina on my cabinets!! It was totally to be expected in my case.

I insisted that my doors be straight joints, not mitered, but still knew they would crack.

Sorry you are disappointed!

Nancy
Vertise
10 years ago
It's true that miters are expected to expand and contract on wood cabinets. Some cabinet companies use a material other than solid wood to get around the problem (MDF/furniture board or something; not sure if it completely eliminates it).

What I see with your miters doesn't look quite the same situation in that the paint film looks to be cracking over the miter joint in a jagged way. When I look at my cabinets, and others I've seen, it seems like they paint the parts first and then assemble, so there is just an air gap that opens and closes cleanly, not a jagged breaking film of paint because seams were filled with paint. . I don't know what the painting process is, though. My panels are separate pieces too, with air gaps between the parts, not filled with paint that would crack.

An expanding seam does not look bad to me, it looks natural and I like it. However, I wouldn't like the paint itself cracking irregularly over seams. This doesn't seem acceptable to me, and a fabrication issue.

The cabinetmaker should know this would happen so trying to make them look seamless is not a good method to begin with. The MDF route might eliminate the problem though. That's how some manufacturers make their painted cabinet doors, for the reason you have there.

Did they have samples to look at?

This post was edited by snookums2 on Mon, Jul 29, 13 at 9:18
millworkman
10 years ago
Wood expands and contracts, interior finishes should NEVER be installed without HVAC system up and running as well as allowing the finished produts to acclimate to the house climate before installation. That being said wood expands and contracts (has to, just nature of the beast) and that is the result. It should have been pointed out to you that this wood happen (unless the samples showed this) and perhaps you would have chosen MDF or the like since it is a more stable product.
CEFreeman
10 years ago
I know you're not getting the answers you probably hoped for.
And it really doesn't matter than it doesn't bother other people.
I'm another one, though, that looks at that as the nature of the beast. There isn't any way a mitre isn't going to expand and contract.

When I first started getting cabinets and painting them. (Since they weren't matching) I saw the crack in the mitres. I thought, "Hmmm. Cold contracts, hot expands." So I waited until dry winter and caulked the seams, intending to do another coat of paint.

Lo and behold, in the summer heat, despite AC, the wood expanded and squeezed a fine line of caulk out of the crack. I scraped it with a razor, touched it up and dealt with the look in the winter, where now it looked a tiny bit concave. We have more hot days than cold.

Anyway, enuff about me.

There isn't a "fix" for this, other than changing your door type. Paint on the slab part has nothing to do with what's happening now, so don't worry about that. It's the join on the wood.

I'd ask the builder to come to see if there's any way to minimize the cracks. The thing is, these are gorgeous mitres. Recognizing this I think is important because this is a skill many do not have. They do NOT mismatch at all, so there isn't anything wrong at all with the mitre. Insulting what looks like lovely craftsmanship will get you nowhere.

Can you hold off and let your kitchen be finished, then see how much you notice? Many of us have found something that is overwhelmingly, deathly horrible and ruins life as we know it, find we've forgotten about it by the time the kitchen is finished.
User
10 years ago
Moisture in a home is an frenemy to be managed. Letting it loose to do it's damage doesn't help any part of your home. Get AC in the summer and use it. Also get a humidifier for winter. It's all about the humidity in your home, and if you can control it, your miters will look better. Your wood floors will be happier. Your crown molding won't develop gaps. And your skin will feel better in summer and winter.

Cracks in my painted mitered flat paneled cabinet

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deedles

iheartgiantschnauzer

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