Gluing Boards

[Johnnyy Johnson]

When gluing up boards is it better to plain before or after gluing?

Thanks

[Bruce Haugen]

the edges often don't line up exactly as they're supposed to.

[Tony Bilello]

I rough plane first so that I can see the grain for making table tops. After assembly and glue up, I finish plane to dimension. As Bruce said, the boards dont always line up as they are supposed to.

[Scott T Smith]

My preferred method is to plane them beforehand, use Domino's to precisely align the edges, and then go through the WBS afterward to clean up any slight differences.

[Russ Boyd]

I agree with Tony. If at all possible width wise, go through after the glue-up. If you have a wide belt sander, that's what I'd use, assuming your glue up is pretty accurate. Otherwise the sanding will take forever, the planer would be quicker, but not as finished. You'd still need at least a minimal sanding after the planer.

[John Coloccia]

I plane before hand. If you do that precisely, and then quickly join the boards (same day, for example, so things don't have a chance to move), I can get a joint that requires practically no touch up. Maybe just a little with a scraper to clean up any dried squeeze out and get it perfect.

[Frank Drew]

What Scott and John said: If your finished panel(s) will be wider than your equipment, you'll have to glue up planed boards; some form of registration such as biscuits can help here. If the material is flat and you do a careful glueup, you shouldn't have to do much cleanup beyond scraping and sanding. And if you don't have a wide belt sander available, a portable belt sander with a sanding frame is an ideal tool for getting the panel ready for finish sanding.

[Bill Huber]

I plane my boards first, I only have a 13 inch planer.

I now am using a Reversible Glue Joint bit on the router table and then do the glue up. Works very well and there is very little to do afterward.

You have to get the bit set up just right or you will have a mess. I make a lot of test before I do the finial routing on the main boards.

http://www.eagleamerica.com/product/v190-2615/ea_-_glue_joints

[Johnnyy Johnson]

I am building step treads. I have always planed before gluing. The other day a friend and very experienced woodworker told me to glue then plain. we were short on time and I don't know if he meant always or just on treads.

What is the best way to get that first cut on the table saw right. I have used a straight edge and skill saw as well as straighten up with a band saw after popping a line. I can not get one method to work always. I bought a freud thin kerf glue blade and hope to be able to glue just after cutting with that. I have a 6 ' jointer, 15 ' planer. I dont like using the Jointer much. I hope I can get a straight edge with the TS and the plane or glue. At this point I dont care which come first..glue or plane...Thanks for any help.

[Stephen Edwards]

You can make a simple jig/sled to ride against the fence of your table saw. The piece that you're attempting to get a straight edge on sits on the sled up against some spacer blocks that are part of the sled, or held down with some kind of clamping system. Push it through the saw and you have a perfect straight edge to work with from there on out. This works much better than trying to do it free hand on chalk line.

[Mike Heidrick]

I rough plane first so that I can see the grain for making table tops. After assembly and glue up, I finish plane to dimension. As Bruce said, the boards dont always line up as they are supposed to.


+1 - When possible I do both.

[David DeCristoforo]

Planing rough stock enough to see the figure makes sense. But glueups can mess with you. For example, if you have several nice looking boards that you want to glue up and each one has a slight twist or bow and you force them into "perfect" alignment by whatever means you have (biscuits, dowels, splines, dominos, just plain force etc.), you may find that all of those little variations have now combined in your single glued up panel which may end up bowed or twisted or cupped. So I have found that in most cases, it's better to align the boards as best you can without using more than a slight amount of force so that they are more or less "relaxed". Then you can surface the whole thing and end up with a nice flat panel.

[johnny means]

Planing rough stock enough to see the figure makes sense. But glueups can mess with you. For example, if you have several nice looking boards that you want to glue up and each one has a slight twist or bow and you force them into "perfect" alignment by whatever means you have (biscuits, dowels, splines, dominos, just plain force etc.), you may find that all of those little variations have now combined in your single glued up panel which may end up bowed or twisted or cupped. So I have found that in most cases, it's better to align the boards as best you can without using more than a slight amount of force so that they are more or less "relaxed". Then you can surface the whole thing and end up with a nice flat panel.

+1 When ever gluing panels from narrow boards, what you are really ending up with is a series of ever so slightly out of plane facets. If you do force them to be planer you now have a series of ever so slightly unclosed glue joints. These imperfections may be invisible in the end. Then again they may not be. Also, glue ups are a whole lot easier when you're not worried about even joints.

[Peter Quinn]

I am building step treads. I have always planed before gluing. The other day a friend and very experienced woodworker told me to glue then plain. we were short on time and I don't know if he meant always or just on treads.

What is the best way to get that first cut on the table saw right. I have used a straight edge and skill saw as well as straighten up with a band saw after popping a line. I can not get one method to work always. I bought a freud thin kerf glue blade and hope to be able to glue just after cutting with that. I have a 6 ' jointer, 15 ' planer. I dont like using the Jointer much. I hope I can get a straight edge with the TS and the plane or glue. At this point I dont care which come first..glue or plane...Thanks for any help.

I make a fair number of stair treads at work, and they almost always get planed only after glue up. But we start with 5/4 hit and miss planed to 1 3/16", so you can read the grain, so I suppose that would constitute planing before gluing. We pick fairly flat material to begin with but the treads do not get jointed flat. They are stair treads after all, not panels for doors or to be dovetailed for case sides. Flat is not actually a requirement of stair treads, at least until the quality of framing improves.:D I like to leave as much room for planing after glue up as possible, and a few rough spots in the field of the B face are not a problem. We do carefully joint the edges for a proper glue joint and try to achieve the best orientation possible when clamping. Its tough to get a good glue joint with a TS using stock that is not flattened.

[frank shic]

wow, sounds to me like everyone has had some difficulty in the past with glue ups! i don't feel so bad anymore lol. i'm going to try to break up the panels in the future so that i can just use a single board especially when it comes to pine or poplar where i can get them as wide as 10".

[Tony Bilello]

Planing rough stock enough to see the figure makes sense. But glueups can mess with you. For example, if you have several nice looking boards that you want to glue up and each one has a slight twist or bow and you force them into "perfect" alignment by whatever means you have (biscuits, dowels, splines, dominos, just plain force etc.), you may find that all of those little variations have now combined in your single glued up panel which may end up bowed or twisted or cupped. So I have found that in most cases, it's better to align the boards as best you can without using more than a slight amount of force so that they are more or less "relaxed". Then you can surface the whole thing and end up with a nice flat panel.

+2
I never think of a table top as a series of glued up boards. I think of it as one big rough cut board. And one big rough cut board is never perfect. You can either hand treat it or run it through the planer. That is why I bought a planer in the first place.
Obviously if it wont fit in your planer, you cant do this.

[David DeCristoforo]

"Obviously if it wont fit in your planer, you cant do this."

What you can do is glue up "sub assemblies" that will fit through your planer. Then, once they have been flattened, you can glue up your final width.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

First --- no --- after ---no--- first ---no-- after

Clearly, by now, you can see that the answer depends more on what you are doing, working with, and the result desired.

[Steve Clardy]

I use skip planed lumber. Glue up then surface to size.

[Rod Sheridan]

When gluing up boards is it better to plain before or after gluing?

Thanks

Hi, when I glue up boards for a cabinet top or gable, I arrange them for the best grain combination or ray pattern. Often this means I have grain going in different directions, which makes it very difficult to run through a planer.

So, I joint and plane it first, and then glue it. With accurate planing and jointing, glue ups are accurate to a few thousanths of an issue, based upon the finger tip measurement method.

Those sort of differences are removed with a few passes of a cabinet scraper after the glue has dried.

I've found that short of using a glue joint cutter in a shaper with a power feeder, that any other mechanical alignment method is less accurate than the finger tip method of aligning your boards.

Regards, Rod.

[Brad Westcott]

If I were filthy rich and had more space than Norm Abrams, I would glue up first and plane last on some monster machine 40"+ wide.

But reality is, most of us are stuck with a 12" planer. Not much choice but to plane first then glue them up. I always use bisquits.

The best advice I can give is to spend a little more time up front selecting your wood, use it where it makes the most sense, and study how it will be oriented. Just accept there is going to be more scrap then you would like and just buy more lumber than you think you need.

This will greatly reduce your headaches later with assembly and appearance.