Poll on Panel Glue ups - Fully Thickness before glue up ??

[George Bokros]

Do you fully thickness before gluing up a panel or only partially thickness then final thickness after glue up? This is dependent upon if your planer can thickness the final glued up size of the pane. Reason for asking is I recently had an experience like Rich Engelhardt did where a glue squeeze out bead I missed nicked my planer knives.

[Mike Cutler]

Dimension first then glue.
With rare exception, I don't run the glue up back through planer. I use primarily use epoxies, and epoxy is notoriously not good on knives
The planer is only 15" wide and the Sander is 27" wide. Easier to leave a few thou' fat ,and run it though the sander. It's going through the sander at some point anyway.

[Peter Quinn]

I've done it both ways, depends on the size of the panel. I've run uncleaned glue ups through the planer, never had an issue. Bigger problem is at the wide belt, a glue line can easily cook a wide belt or a drum sander sheet. Its the heat, burns it right into the paper, makes a nasty mark on the wood after that. Ive planned epoxy, PVA glues, polyurethane, never sustained damage to knives. Carbide inserts actually scare me more, they are vey thin at the tip and brittle. I usually clean one face so it rides flat on the planner bed. With enough care and cauls I can usually get small panels (i.e. not a dining table size glue up) flush or close enough to orbital sand it home with just cauls and clamps, but thats a lot more work that isn't always justified IME.

[Martin Wasner]

I don't dimension anything prior to glueing panels up. If I'm buying 8/4 to make a 1½" thick table top, I'll plane the parts to 1-5/8". Once assembled, grind it down in the widebelt to thickness. It can be really hard to get a ton of pieces to line up well enough to get them flat and smooth of you are off a smidge on alignment. Small stuff like door panels and drawer parts are easier, but we leave them at 13/16" and just plane to 11/16", then sand to 5/8". Parts too wide for the planer which load up a 60 and 80 grit belt and hog them down in the sander. No wide belt? I'd get real good at being careful or buy a set of cutters for self aligning parts that were too big to plane.

[John TenEyck]

I scrape off any glue squeeze out before sending glued up panels through the planer or drum sander. As long as I do that I don't get chipped knives or burned sanding strips. For any panel that can fit through my 18 x 36 drum sander I glue it up about 1/16" thick and then drum sand to final thickness. For panels wider than that I make two narrower panels, sand them within about 0.010" of final thickness, run a spline groove or lock joint along the mating edges, then glue them up. They usually come out about perfect, or at least close enough that my ROS can make it look perfect.

Adapt to what equipment you have.

John

[glenn bradley]

Nothing I make gets from machine to finish without hand work so, although I get pretty close to finished dimension before glue up I do leave a fat 1/32" or so for final surface prep.

[Matt Day]

Are you saying dried glue caused a nick in your planer knIves?

[George Bokros]

Are you saying dried glue caused a nick in your planer knIves?


Yes that is what happened Matt.

[larry senen]

your question has ruled out my answer. but i'll give it anyway; if the panel has many boards, i'll glue up a few no wider than my planer,thicker than finished size. do this with several panels until i have enough to make my finished width +. then i run them though the planer.

that way i only have to deal with two or three joints in the glue-up.

[Mike Chalmers]

Face joint the pieces, then plane both sides. That way, I can deal with squeeze out using wet rag. With my skills, this is really the only way I can achieve a nice, flat panel.

[Jim Andrew]

I used to do glue ups like larry senen, and then do a final glue up after final planing, but now I glue up 1/16" over, then use the wide belt to take it to the final thickness. You avoid tear out completely with a wide belt. And using a wide belt instead of a hand held belt sander, you avoid the "turkey tracks".

[Chris Hachet]

Nothing I make gets from machine to finish without hand work so, although I get pretty close to finished dimension before glue up I do leave a fat 1/32" or so for final surface prep.


I am the same way. I do not own a joiner or planer, so it is all hand work for me...

[Matt Day]

Yes that is what happened Matt.

Wow, I never had considered that that could happen. Guess I should make sure I scrape the glue joints on BOTH sides from now on.

[pat warner]

Milling/planing once/panel is enough mess. I plane to net from the "git-go".

[Rich Engelhardt]

Are you saying dried glue caused a nick in your planer knIves?Yep - -three nice "lines" are now produced on the surfaces of anything planed.
I chalked it up to learning a lesson and changed the blades to their other surface (I have a DeWalt DW734).

The glue I used was TBII and it had dried about 72 hours before the boards went through the planer.
I didn't scrape the excess dried glue off.

[Marty Tippin]

The only "panels" I regularly glue up are for cutting boards - usually I glue up long strips and then cut those strips and re-glue to make end-grain cutting boards. I leave the initial strips a solid 1/16" or more thicker than the final thickness, scrape as much glue off both sides as I can and run them through the planer until they're at the desired final thickness. Saves all kinds of time, as I don't have to be precise in my glue-up. For the final end-grain slices, I do the same thing, but cut them about 3/16" thicker than I really want so that I can run the final glue-up through the planer (yes, I send end grain through the planer. No, I don't need a lecture...) and then through the drum sander.

The few times I've glued up other kinds of panels, I follow a similar plan and, as long as the panel will fit through the planer, that's where it goes after the glue dries.

FWIW - I have a Grizzly 15" planer with the spiral head and carbide cutters. I also use TiteBond III glue. I don't get nicks in my cutters from the glue.