Before or After glue up?

[Keel McDonald]

I am on the verge of starting a project for our church. I need to build 3 reception desks (L-shaped). I have been given some direction as to how they should look and what they are to be made of. I will construct them out of 3/4" oak ply. I have been reading another thread today about edge banding vs. solid wood. I think I'll go with solid wood. Anyway, the question I have is this. Do any of you have any experience finishing the wood BEFORE glue up? It seems it would be much easier, but have never attempted it this way. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

[Phil Phelps]

but for the most part, you are better off assembling first and then finishing. Gluing and clamping is much easier. You can finish the backs of cabinets separately and install after their finished. When spraying the finish, this prevents "blow back" from the overspray. But, I still do it the old fashioned way.

[Marc Spagnuolo]

I finish as much as is reasonable before glue-up. The important thing is to protect your joints from the finish. This can be done rather easily with blue tape. But sometimes its just not possible to finish ahead of time. For me though, the more finishing I can do prior to glue-up, the better.

A bookcase is a good example. As seperate pieces, it is a very simple finishing project. Now if you glue it all together and finish, its a whole different story. You have a ton of corners and awkward spaces to fit in.

So basically you need to use your judgement and think ahead. Try it on the desk and see how you like it.

[Bernie Weishapl]

I finish after the glue up. I use a scraper to clean off the glue and the clean up the edges. I just did the very thing I think you are asking. I made a flip top bench with Plywood. All of the edges are covered with oak that I cut with my bandsaw. Around the flip top is 1/8" and around the sides is 1/4". I scraped the glue, finish the edges, sanded and finished.

[Lee Schierer]

I've done it both ways and some with finished and unfinished parts. You will find that glue will not stick to finished wood so mask areas that are to be glued before applying the finish. Masking tape works well for the masking. I like to stain at least the border areas of raised panels and the panel grooves in the rails and stiles before I assemble them. This makes it easier to get the stain even and not have to worry about accumulations in the corners and along the edges. I have also stained slats and spindles prior to assembly as it is easier to wipe off the excess stain when they are free.

If you are going to have problems getting the finish you want on an area then put it on prior to assembly.

[Keel McDonald]

Would it make any difference to just stain the project before gluing? In other words, will glue stick to just stain without any final finish?

[Dennis Peacock]

Would it make any difference to just stain the project before gluing? In other words, will glue stick to just stain without any final finish?

Keel,

With alcohol based or water based dyes....yes...this will work fine. I my experiences, with an oil based stain, glue will not stick to the finish and the glue areas will need to be masked off before the staining begins. That's just my experiences with this process.

[Dennis Peacock]

I've tried finishing before assembly and also finishing after assembly. My usual method is finishing after assembly. Maybe I haven't perfected the process of finishing before assembly.....but finishing after assembly does present a nice challenge.....if you want to call it that. I would LOVE to find a process of finishing before assembly that works well....but I haven't found one yet. :rolleyes:

[Jim Becker]

I honestly think the answer depends on the particular project...some are easier to pre-finish than others due to their construction methods, etc. For example, I pre-finished the components for my kitchen cabinets which allowed me to spray everything flat. That's nice 'cause spraying INTO a cabinet can be nasty. For "fine furniture", where I pretty much never use sheet goods, I prefer to finish after assembly so that I can scrape and sand everything together. However, one "could" prefinish even in that situation if the design lends itself to the process...

[Keith Christopher]

I have to agree with Jim here, I usually finish after glue up, but if I have "fixed" shelving or top or bottoms, I finish them and then glue up, this way I get a cleaner line in the corners of these. But mostly it's after glue-up.

[Jack Hogoboom]

I usually do things the hard way, so normally I finish after glue-up. Once, while building a table, I tried finishing before assembly because I had about 5 different steps to the finishing process.

I worried about the same thing on the glue up, so I taped everything off first. I must've spent two hours trying to get the tape out of the glue joints. :eek: If you're going to finish first, make sure you're more precise about where you tape than I was. It'd be a real bummer to glue something up and realize you had an unfinished gap showing.... DAMHIKT.

Jack

[Keel McDonald]

Thanks for all the advice guys. I guess I pretty much knew the answer before I asked the question. But I'm always reading about something on the Creek that I never knew about, and was hoping this would be one of those times.