face laminating plywood?

[keith ouellette]

I am face laminating cabinet grade 15/32 plywood with tite bond 2 wood glue. I am not using any screws.

I know the directions on the label say to leave clamped for 30 min.

Do you think that is long enough to laminate plywood before I remove the clamps and do the next one?

[Chris Padilla]

What are you gluing the plywood to, Keith? More plywood?

[keith ouellette]

What are you gluing the plywood to, Keith? More plywood?

yes. I needed to put to 15/32 together to make 1 30/32. I'm making due with what I have on hand.

[Chris Padilla]

One slight concern I have is that you are providing equal pressure all around. How large an area of ply to ply are you gluing? Are you spreading the glue all nice 'n even with a roller? I'd hate to see you have delamination issues later on. I'd be tempted to use something other than TB-II but if that is what you have, I'd leave it in the clamps for a lot longer than 30 minutes. What will your ~2" thick plywood sandwich be used for? Maybe you can unclamp, stack a buncha stuff on it? Park your car on it? ;)

[Todd Pretty]

What will your ~2" thick plywood sandwich be used for? ;)


15/32 + 15/32 = 30/32 ie. 15/16 ie. not quite one inch. ;)

Keith, are you laminating a full 4'x8' sheet, or, I'm guessing, something smaller?

Depending on the size, and how much force will be applied to the laminate, I'd consider roughing the face of the cabinet grade ply, in order to increase the glues' adhesion.

I've had better luck laminating with polyurethane glues, but maybe that's cuz I always seem to be working in cold shops.

[Peter Quinn]

It works fine with any tite bond glue. leave in clamps something more like 6 hours to let the center dry. These PVA glues activate through evaporation, or loss of water, and need pressure. You will loose some water to the wood, but not generally enough to reach any strength in 30 minutes. It will take a lot longer than the 30 minute time listed for this water loss to happen at the center of a face lamination, exactly how long I can't say, but we usually make it the last thing we do in a given day and let it go over night to be conservative. If your laminations are large sheets, I would seriously recommend ordering a sheet of 1" plywood as it will be very difficult without a vacuum press to get pressure in the center and may not be worth the trouble. If the maximum widths can be clamped or reached with cauls then no harm in using what you have at hand. If you are making multiple pieces of similar dimension I like to glue them up as a sandwich, one big stack so each layer acts as a caul for the others. We usually use a foam roller to spread an even glue film. For large pieces you could also make an improvised screw press with some stout cauls, some t nuts and some bolts or pipe clamps, but it may not be worth the trouble.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

9 or so 50 Pound bags of sand placed variously around the open face of that sandwich ought to clamp it up right fine.

You might also use spring sticks but you'd need some thick sticks

[Jules Dominguez]

If complete adhesion of the finished lamination is required for your application, I wouldn't even attempt it, because you won't get it without a large vacuum press or an industrial grade hydraulic press. A single layer of sandbags, even if you cover the entire surface with them, will provide less than 0.5 psi, and cauls won't provide uniform pressure across the surface of the panels.
This is probably not a good time to try to get by with what you have on hand, unless your application is non-critical.
If all you need is for the edges of the panels to be glued, you might be able to do that with cauls.

[Chris Padilla]

15/32 + 15/32 = 30/32 ie. 15/16 ie. not quite one inch. ;)

Agree but he wrote:

I needed to put to 15/32 together to make 1 30/32. I'm making due with what I have on hand.

And in my small head, "1 30/32", appeared to be nearly 2". Someone once told me that reading is fundamental! ;)

:D

[J. Z. Guest]

I laminated two sheets of plywood for use as my workbench top.

I used Titebond III, though I'm sure Titebond original would have worked too.

For clamping, I screwed it together.

If I couldn't use screws, I would use weight rather than clamps.

[glenn bradley]

15/32 + 15/32 = 30/32 ie. 15/16 ie. not quite one inch. ;)

No, no, you mean 7.5-8ths don't you?

I have laminated ply as you describe by using my tablesaw top extension router table and extension wings as a large flat surface. Drive a brad part way in a couple spots and cut the part sticking out so it leaves about 1/16" of a "spike" in at least 3 spots on the glued surface (before you apply the glue). This will keep your large surfaces from trying to surf around while you weigh them down. I used a spare extension wing, a grinder, some dumbbells, gallons of yet-to-be-used paint, etc. to press the two large areas together uniformly as I could. Dried overnight, cut to final size, worked fine.