QSWO tabletop - Machine-plane before glueup?

[Jacob Reverb]

Hey, all,

I'm getting ready to make a trestle table from quarter-sawn white oak.

To choose which boards should go where in the tabletop, I ran them through the planer so I could get at least a clue at what the fleck and grain looked like underneath.

I'm accustomed to working with pine, and in the past when I've glued up tabletops, I would generally leave them fairly rough and then level everything after glueup with a jack plane and jointer plane.

I've never glued up at tabletop with QSWO, however, and I'm wondering whether I should try to get a decent surface before glue-up to avoid a lot of difficult hand-planing (and possible tearout and other complications) later.

Does anyone have any advice for a n00b on this?

(I'm also planning to cover my black-iron pipe clamps with blue painters tape to avoid the glue-rust-tannin mess that you can get with WO and iron and glue...and planning to use Titebond II for glueup...)

TIA for any help.

[lowell holmes]

I've never experienced much problem hand planing white oak. It is harder to work than pine, but it works ok.

[Frank Drew]

Jacob,

If you just want to get the job done in the most efficient manner, machine plane the boards to very close to the final size and take care with the glue up; biscuits or dowels can help with alignment but aren't essential for strength. You can still handplane the top during the cleanup phase.

[Al Navas]

I posted several times about a 1-1/2-inch thick top in QSWO for a small conference table I did for a client - it all started like this:

http://sandal-woodsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/table-top-glueup-1.png

You will find all the threads at this link, right here on SMC (http://sawmillcreek.org/search.php?searchid=3187700) - a total of nine posts, spread over a period of time.

I hope one of these will answer your question(s), and make you feel a little more at ease... :cool:


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[John Thompson]

Ditto Frank Drew... I've built 4 large carcass pieces in the last year with QSWO. I machine plane down both sides just to leave a smooth surface.. glue and then take it down to actual.

[Jacob Reverb]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

Al, your linky no worky. (It just says "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.")

[Al Navas]

Jacob,

I inserted a corrected (?) link. It worked while I was editing, and clicked on it while in the Preview mode. Please let me know if you still have problems seeing the posts.

In case you cannot see the entries, you can search SMC with the phrase "The full-size table:"


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