gluing up bench top

[mike johnston]

Any good tips before I start. I'm going to start in the next day or 2. Hard Maple in 3" strips, hopefully yield 2 3/4" or slightly thicker top after planning. Mostly wondering if anyone had any tricks for gluing up more than 2 or 3 strips at a time making a terrible mess, or things sliding all over. I've even thought of a couple brads here and there just to keep things straight until I get the clamps tight. Taking care to stay clear of dog holes. I'm hoping to do it in not more than 3 or 4 sections.
Thanks
Mike

[Greg Cole]

I'd suggest only gluing 2-3 boards at a time. You'll be able to get the aligned better and not have give up as much final thickess when it comes time to plane the sections. The sub sections will also be easier to manage for planing, then glue the sub sections together for the completed top.
Cauls can help the alignment as well, just be sure to cover the cauls (packing tape or wax paper) so they don't wind up glued to the work. Splines or biscuits can be used to help with alignment too. I'd avoid the brads.

[John Keeton]

I've never done this Mike, but what about a temporary "bread board" cap on each end. Take a section of 3" stock, sandwich it with a little wider stock on top and bottom so that you could capture the ends of all the boards as you assemble them on the clamps. Imagine a long "U" on each end - a big dado.

You could use cauls through the middle portion. Be sure to use wax paper with the bread board cap as well.

Just trying to think thru this with you.

As Greg said, when I did the glue up for my bench, I did 3 boards at a time, but more because of open glue time than anything. If you had some help, one could possibly do more. I would also avoid metal. It will nearly always end up where you want a hole in the future! I actually think it migrates to those areas;).

[Chris Friesen]

I found that using a credit card to spread the glue I could do 4-5 layers at a time. I spread glue on both sides to get a better bond. I used recycled bowling alley material so my strips were less than 1" wide, which meant I ended up with _many_ strips.

I glued up sub-laminations, glued up those in turn into two 12" wide sections, jointed/surfaced each separately, and then did one final joint. The two big pieces were awkward to run over the power jointer, so I used my jointer plane to tweak the surfaces of that final joint.

[Tom Cross]

I did this about three weeks ago. I glued up a 3" x 24" x 96" hard maple top for the Holtzapel bench featured in Woodworking Magazine, a wonderful design.

I bought 12/4 maple, each board about 7"-8" wide. I ripped the boards in half on the band saw. Then face glued them two at a time running each pair through the planer after glue up. This way there is no need to worry about exact alignment of the top edges at each stage as I had extra thickness to work with (about 3-1/2"). I ended up with two 12" x 96" sections for the final glue up. Running those two sections through the planer assured they were the same thickness, slighlty over 3". Run the mating edges over the jointer so everything is square and ready for glue up. Since both sections weigh about 100 pounds, the final glue up was easy and I got very good top edge alignment. It only took about 45 minutes with a hand plane to get everything dead flat.

It was no easy task handling those long and heavy glue up sections on the jointer and planer. The key is to have good in feed and out feed tables or stands. There is no need to use biscuits or any other alignment as long as the work on the jointer and planer is done carefully.

Good luck with the glue up. I used about 20 clamps during the glue up. It certainly is helpful to have another person help you. I did it alone and it was a chore.

[mike johnston]

After some thought 2 or 3 strips at atime is going to be the best way for me. Tom how hard was it to handle those big slabs on the jointer. I'm also dealing with 4/4 material not alot of good thick maple stock in sw iowa.

thanks
Mike

[Tom Cross]

For the jointer, good in feed and out feed support is vital. I cobbled something together and it was not bad at all. Without the in feed and out feed support and 96" long pieces, it was impossible. So I suggest rigging up something for supports and go for it. It is well worth it.

And yes, gluing up two boards at a time is the way to go. It is much easier to get everything aligned. Top edge alignment is critical especially as you do the final two subassembly glue up. Otherwise, you have a mess trying to hand plane the top to get it flat. Another way to go is to have two bench sections, each a maximum of 12" wide that can go through the planer and have a tool tray between the two 12" wide sections. A recent issue of Popular Woodworking shows this design if that would work for you. i opted for a 24" wide solid top as I hate tool trays, just gathers junk and a pain to clean.

By the way, the 24" Veritas twin screw vice is terrific as well as the Veritas 3/4" round bench dogs and the Veritas hold downs.

[Wilbur Pan]

Hi Mike,

I just did a benchtop glue up out of Douglas fir 4x4s. There's a thread (http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=102141) I started over in the Neanderthal forum showing how I went about the glue up process.

In the long run, I found hand planes an easier way of cleaning up the faces to be glued and squaring up the long beams than to try to rig up support for my jointer.

Do them 2 pieces at a time, and align the top edges. And make sure not to rush and to take the time to do this right. The last thing I want to find out is that I hurried something and my benchtop is delaminating.

[Joshua Delmonico]

I received some 2 x3 hard maple. From my father. I am planning to make a bench top out of it. He had it jointed and planed about a years go and it is no longer square. There are some gaps that are about 3/16" between a few of the boards. I can close the gaps with clamps. Is it a mistake to glue it up that way? Will it stress the bench top and fail? I don't have a jointer.
Thanks.
Josh

[Rick Lizek]

With curved cauls I can easily glue that up in one session. After the glue has died it's a simple matter of scraping off the glue beads and sanding. It also helps to take more care in you're facing and milling of the wood. Making sure everything is parallel and square is crucial.

[Brian Tymchak]

to greatly speed up the glue spreading process, use a 3" (or trim) paint roller. I bought a couple with the roller in a little plastic tray when I did my bench top. Worked great! You can store glue in the tray by keeping it closed up with a piece of plastic wrap.

Also, instead of jointing/planing all the laminates to final width before starting the glue up, I jointed 1 clean face on a pair of laminates, glued them together, then jointed/planed the pairs to final dimension. My logic was that clamping the laminates together on the first glue-up might introduce some distortion, that I could take out with the subsequent jointing/planing step.

[Brian Holcombe]

Before you put any glue on the surfaces make sure you test-clamp the glue up. It will save a ton on aggravation finding an alignment or flatness issue before you glue.

[Prashun Patel]

I highly recommend spending the time to organize a good gluing station and some perfectly sized cauls. These will make the glue up come together truer, and easier. I hate sweating during a glue up.

I must not be that good a jointer. I can rarely get a whole group of laminations of thick bench top boards glued perfectly. My method is to do it in two halves. For each half I start with the center board and glue a board to each side with cauls the length of the bench. I can keep the two seams flat with a mallet or my fingers this way. After drying for 30-40 minutes, I pry off the glue from the top seams, and then glue two more boards to the outsides.

After the two halves are done, I use a beater plane to remove the squeeze out drips from the bottom, send them through the lunchbox planer, joint one side of each half, and then glue them up. For this operation, I do like to use top/bottom cauls.

[J.R. Rutter]

I received some 2 x3 hard maple. From my father. I am planning to make a bench top out of it. He had it jointed and planed about a years go and it is no longer square. There are some gaps that are about 3/16" between a few of the boards. I can close the gaps with clamps. Is it a mistake to glue it up that way? Will it stress the bench top and fail? I don't have a jointer.
Thanks.
JoshIt is not ideal to glue on surfaces that have had so long to oxidize. Glue does not bond as well. If you have a planer, I would send them through on edge to just skim off the old wood and expose fresh.

[Chris Padilla]

Mike,

You pretty much have all the advice here in the thread. The bottom line is to get organized to minimize stress and errors. Once the glue goes on, you don't want ANY surprises so always do a trial DRY run to make sure you've thought of EVERYTHING you can. Make sure your clamps are nearby and ready to go and in good working order. How about your glue bottle and brushes: all ready...have a place to put them? Do you need a wet rag or sponge to clean your hands or fingers or to wipe drips...towel for drying your hands? You protect your bench top? Do you have good access all around the project? Cauls ready to go? You have access for your clamps? Blocks for the clamps so they don't mar the surface? Can you fit all your clamps on? Is the piece marked for even distribution of the clamps? How about a hammer and a block handy to knock pieces into alignment? Things fit great dry and easily move around and you can precisely align them. Glue can make things squirrely and slippery...until the glue starts drying and then you can't move things at all so you have two equally frustrating sides of gluing to deal with and often within minutes of each other! Fun, eh? I hate glue ups.... :) Use TB-III as it has the longest open time of the 3. Definitely use a roller to uniformly distribute the glue.

[Andrew Hughes]

Joshua,I think you should get the wood jointed and planed.Or tru to at least one face.Before a glue up it's not a good idea to glue your wood after it's been sitting fir so long.Sorry for the bad news. Andrew

[Pat Barry]

Mike,

You pretty much have all the advice here in the thread. The bottom line is to get organized to minimize stress and errors. Once the glue goes on, you don't want ANY surprises so always do a trial DRY run to make sure you've thought of EVERYTHING you can. Make sure your clamps are nearby and ready to go and in good working order. How about your glue bottle and brushes: all ready...have a place to put them? Do you need a wet rag or sponge to clean your hands or fingers or to wipe drips...towel for drying your hands? You protect your bench top? Do you have good access all around the project? Cauls ready to go? You have access for your clamps? Blocks for the clamps so they don't mar the surface? Can you fit all your clamps on? Is the piece marked for even distribution of the clamps? How about a hammer and a block handy to knock pieces into alignment? Things fit great dry and easily move around and you can precisely align them. Glue can make things squirrely and slippery...until the glue starts drying and then you can't move things at all so you have two equally frustrating sides of gluing to deal with and often within minutes of each other! Fun, eh? I hate glue ups.... :) Use TB-III as it has the longest open time of the 3. Definitely use a roller to uniformly distribute the glue.
I think Mike maybe got all the info he needed in 2009.

[Chris Padilla]

Doh! I hate it when I miss the dates on a thread....

[Brian Tymchak]

Gets me everytime... :o