Multi piece glue-up through planer???

[Dave Rathert]

Does anyone see any potential issues running the attached glue up through a thickness planer? I have a Ridgid 13” 2 knife. Overall it will be about 26” X 4” X ¾”. The strips will be 2 each of 7/8, 5/8, 3/8, and 1/8. The crosscuts (2nd glue up) will be either 1” or 1 1/8”. So there will be a lot of Titebond III and a pretty fair number of smallish pieces. The goal is to make some 3/8” thick coasters so I’ll need to plane off quite a bit (obviously in several passes). I don’t have a panel sander and my cheap-o 3 wheel band saw and questionable resaw skills leave me thinking the planer might be my best option. No end grain, so that’s a plus. Oh yeah, woods are walnut and maple. Any thoughts?


I might as well ask another question while I’m here. How do you see a 4 X 4 x 3/8 coaster made from this glue up holding up? I’m imagining a finish of wax free shellac and poly with a cork circle inlay on one side.


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Thanks
-Dave

[Keith Harrell]

I can't tell if you are doing end grain glue up's or not. If you have end grain up then the back may chip out as it exits the planer. If it not then you should be ok.
The only other thing I have learned on these glues up is that sometime there maybe a void(no glue) in some area that may separate. Just don't stand behind the planer if she kick something out it will go there.
Looks like a nice design.

[Dave Rathert]

No end grain Keith. Thanks!!!

-D

[Jamie Buxton]

So... the grain of all the pieces runs the long direction on that "board" in the original post? If so, I'd say the design has a problem. In general, Titebond doesn't bond very well to end grain. It does bond somewhat, but nowhere near as well as to face grain. Your design has end-grain to end-grain glue joints everyplace. I'd expect the coasters to fail at those end-grain joints.

[Dave Rathert]

Ahhh good point Jamie. Is there a glue you’d recommend or should I scrap the whole project?



-D

[Jerome Hanby]

I'd use splines or biscuits to reinforce the end grain joints. I did that on a chess board and it's held up well.

[Jamie Buxton]

Ahhh good point Jamie. Is there a glue you’d recommend or should I scrap the whole project?
-D

I'm not sure how you intend to assemble the board, but here's an idea... You've got two directions on the board -- the long direction and the cross direction. Let me say you have columns of blocks in the long direction, and rows in the cross direction. Can you shift some of the columns one-half a block? Then each end-grain joint would be bridged by a block on each side. It'd be very strong.

[Dave Rathert]

Jamie, I may not be following you but I don’t think I can pull off your suggestion. I plan to glue up the 8 strips long ways. Then crosscutting them and flipping every other crosscut section. Much like you see with chess boards and some cutting boards.

Jerome, I drew up a quick plan with thru splines 1/8” X ½” alternating Maple and Walnut. I kinda like the look and I think they should do the trick. Since they are thru, it shouldn’t add a ton of work to the project. Ideally this is just a quick way to get rid of some scrap and replace some coasters that my 14 month old broke at grandma’s house hehehe.
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-D

[Russ Forthofer]

Question for those more expert than I: isn't there some risk of the glue chipping the planer blades? At a minimum, I think you would want to take VERY light passes to avoid that problem. But maybe the glue doesn't present the problem I think it would.