? Hexangon pedastal glue up

[denis tuomey]

I'm making a 10" pedastal for a table out of cherry, the 8 pieces are 4 1/8 x 23 x 1 1/8 thick, I profiled the edges with a 1/8" Traditional Beading Bit, after cutting the 22.5 degree angles on the edges I will have 7/8" width of gluing surface, was wondering if that will be enough edge surface for holding together or should I laminate to get it thicker? Appreciate any input.

[Neil Bosdet]

I would think that would be plenty for a very strong joint as long as the mating surfaces all fit well and you use enough glue (no joint starving). The weight and stresses will be vertical on your boards.

[denis tuomey]

Thanks for your input Neil, I guess I'll go ahead and geterdone.

[Charles Lent]

How are you planning to align and clamp your joints? I would use splines or biscuits so they stay aligned during the clue-up and build a fixture to hold them at the correct angle during the glue-up and clamping. Any angular error in a joint will come back to bite you when you get to the other side of the pedestal. Take the time to devise a way to hold them in correct alignment.

Charley

[Andrew Duncan]

Denis, would you mind posting a photo after the glue up? I'd be interested to see how the beading looks on the pedestal. Thanks.

[denis tuomey]

I had initially intended to cut the 22.5 dg. angles with the TS, but when I got to that point I thought, if I'm off a hair it could cause a problem so I purchased a 22.5' router bit and ran em thru the shaper, well worth the expense, they all came out perfect. I cut biscut slots into the angles and the dry fit couldnt be better. I clamped it together with 4 Band clamps, pulls it together good. When I finally do the glue up I figure it would be best to do 2 - 4 edges at a time to avoid any problem with the biscuts swelling once the glue hits them before it gets clamped. This is my 1st. X working with biscuts, so far I am impressed with how they help to keep all the edges even. Hope it does the same thing with the table top. I'll post some pics of the dry fit up soon.

[John Pratt]

If your worried about the holding power of the joint over time, why not use some internal bracing? That's what I've done in the past. Corner blocks or long strips inside the joint for added holding power.

At 22.5 degrees and 8 sides wouldn't that be an octagon (vs. a hexagon)

[denis tuomey]

Yep, you are right John, sorry about that. Wish I knew how to edit that.

[Ben Hatcher]

I wish you luck with the biscuits. I have nothing but trouble with them. No matter how hard I try, I can never get the slots aligned correctly. Doing them on an angle sounds even harder. When I glued up the base for the table in my avatar, I made my pieces 2" longer than I needed and used screws to pull the splines together. It worked great. To get the initial alignment, I used the masking tape trick.

[denis tuomey]

Doing it on an angle was alot simpler then I thought, I held the plate down on the inside surface an angled the cutters face down till it touched the angle, then put the red slot on each pencil mark and cut. Hope it wasnt beginners luck.

[Jamie Goodhart]

I made legs for a coffee table that were octagon and I cut the angle a bit steep so the outside was tight and any gap would be inside and used hose clamps to clamp them together, just needed to work quickly.