Glue-up smoothing...

[Brian Kincaid]

Recently glued up some oak boards 2-4" wide to make a large panel. After the glue-up settled I had quite a bit of cleanup left to do.

My Festool 150-5 with 120 grit wasn't removing the material near fast enough. I went with a Stanley 5 and wrecked the panel with tearout. Then cleaned it up with a host of tools: LN 4, Stanley 80, Card scraper. Then finished it with the Festool sander. Took forever...

So, what is the right way to clean up these glue-ups? Hand held belt sander?

Thanks for any advice.
Brian

[Prashun Patel]

Before the glue sets, I try to use a sponge to get most of it off; some say to let it partially set and then scrape it off with a putty knife. Either way works for me.

That's really the best way; then sandpaper will remove anything that's ground in or remaining.


For any large stains that I missed, I prefer a card scraper. Way more control than even a block plane. Only a few passes though and then on to sandpaper. It's easy to dig trenches with a scraper, which'll show up on a large flat, glossy surface.

[Robert LaPlaca]

Kind of a fine line between enough glue so you get a proper bond and way too much glue, I strive for a joint when clamps are applied you get pearls of glue along the glue line. I wait till the glue sets, but doesn't harden all the way to remove with a sharpened putty knife. Any remaining cleanup is done with a card scraper after everything is cured, then the ROS.

i don't own a belt sander and would imagine it would make quite a mess of a panel, unless one is quite skilled with it's use or uses a sanding frame.

[Joe Scharle]

You may be using way too much glue. Squeeze out should be a line of beads and they are easy to remove after the glue begins to harden a little. The 'thumb test' or when the little beads can be popped off with a thumb nail is your signal to go. I use a sharp chisel on the bevel. A little practice on glued-up scrap will teach you the proper angle and feel for when to remove the glue.

[David DeCristoforo]

Are you talking about glue cleanup or miss-alignment of the pieces? It sounds like the latter because if you are having to do that much work to clean up excess glue, you are using waaaaaaay too much glue! But if you are talking about miss-aligned boards, you need to work on getting the alignment better to begin with by using splines, biscuits, dowels or brute force to get the pieces into plane. Then you will have much less grinding to do to get the panel flat. In some cases, I have resorted to cross grain sanding with a sixty grit belt. But it's almost as much work to clean up the damage this causes as it is to plane and scrape the surface level. I would also suggest that your planes are not nearly sharp enough or you would not be getting that much tear out. You may also be planing the "wrong way" (against the grain).

[Myk Rian]

Instead of using biscuits, dowels, etc. I'll put in a few brad staples, cut the heads off leaving a small nub sticking out. Then I dry fit everything and when gluing up the brad stubs keep things from shifting.

[Howard Acheson]

Is the problem, removing the glue or flattening the panel?

Glue is best scraped off before it it fully hardened.

If you are trying to either level the space between boards or otherwise flatten a panel, I always use a belt sander. Sand initially at 45 degree angles using 80 grit paper. Then using a straightedge, mark the high spots with pencil squiggles. Then sand the squiggles and again use the straightedge to find the high spots and sand. Finish off by sanding with the grain to remove the cross grain sanding marks. Once it's flat, I move to a 1/2 sheet orbital sander and begin smoothing the surface useing 80 grit. Then move to 100, 120, 150 and finish off with 180 grit.

For a panel 3' x 2' you should be able to flatten one side in 15-30 minutes.

The belt sander is one of the most useful tools in many shops. But, you need to practice with it or it can rapidly ruin a surface. Always start on the non-money side of a panel. That way, you learn what you need to do before you get to the "money" side.

[Brian Kincaid]

Mis-aligned boards are the problem. I didn't use any joinery because there were so many boards in the panel. This was obviously a mistake on my part.

Point taken on the non-sharp blades. And of course some of this oak was pretty stubborn. I wish I had a camera at one point because I had a tear-out section on the board that looked like this:

___\_/_____

I had run both ways and got tearout on either side! :rolleyes:

Thanks for the suggestions. I imagine that a belt sander will be in my future at some point...

Brian

[Joe Jensen]

The much easier way is to make flat and straight boards for the glue up. I spent years with a belt sander (before be 6" ROS sander) flattening glue ups. then I bought a planer and was able to make truely flat and straight boards. I haven't used the belt sander in over 15 years, never need it.

[Mikail Khan]

Mis-aligned boards are the problem.




I get the best results when the boards are both face and edge jointed. For a large glue up I use 1.5" steel hollow section as cauls to keep the boards aligned.

Online article on the use of cauls (http://www.newwoodworker.com/cauls.html)

MK

[Richard M. Wolfe]

For glue squeeze-out I like to catch it just before dry when it will come off with a putty knife but not streak. It sounds as if you may be using too much glue to be getting this much squeeze-out. I like to run a small bead along the board edge and smooth it out before edge fitting boards - that eliminates big glue drops.

If you can afford to take the wood any thinner then it could be run through a planer after gluing. That is, if the planer is large enough or the panel small enough, which is the same thing, I guess. For large panels I have made and planed smaller width panels and then fitted two or three together which eliminated a lot of scraping/sanding.

[Peter Scoma]

Stanley 80 is my favorite handtool. With a very minor hook you can remove plenty of material and leave a smooth surface behind. I dont want to belabor the point but all you need to do is align your pieces better with dowels or biscuits and sharpen up your tools. Forget the belt sander.

PS

[David DeCristoforo]

"I had run both ways and got tearout on either side!"

I hear ya... it can be frustrating. But with a sharp, properly tuned smoother, you should be able to cut across the grain with very little or no tearout. Search around on the Neander forum for plane tuning and sharpening threads.... But avoiding the problem in the first place is "the ticket".

[Jim Kountz]

Drum sander. I wipe off any excess glue before it dries and then after the glue is cured I run it through my drum sander a few times. Not only levels any misalignments but flattens the panels out somewhat too. I always plan ahead for this when Im sizing my lumber and add a smidge or two to the thickness, like 1/32 or less. As others have already stated the best thing you can do for yourself is strive for a nice flat even glue up to start with. That alone will save you more time and yield better results than anything else you can do.

[Peter Quinn]

Might I suggest leave the boards as thick as possible, glue up in widths that do fit in your planer, plane these sections flush, then you will only have one, maybe two joints to align at final glue up time? If you have the thickness this could still work now by ripping the panel at a convenient joint and re-gluing that joint line after planing the rest flush. Sometimes I make counter tops for islands whose widths are greater than the wide belt at work and this approach works well for that. Or tune those hand planes, set the blade and frog for VERY LIGHT PASSES and have at it. A low angle jack plane may help?

Depending on what the panel is for I worry at some point wether or not it will be flat enough in the end. I figure table tops don't have to be perfectly flat in most cases, just flat enough to serve the purpose, where as panels for doors had better be flat enough to avoid racking the frame in which they will reside. In this case start with flattened stock and use good cauls, or be prepare to start over.

[Bruce Page]

I let the glue set up for 15-30 min and then scrape it off with a putty knife followed with a damp sponge & warm water.