Glue up question

[Donnie Raines]

Lets say you are putting a table top together, useing four individual boards. Of coarse these will be glued up long grain to long grain. Do you (A) glue up the entire top at one time? Or (B) glue up two of the boards at a time, then, join the two seperate "panels" together to complete the top?

I guess there is no right or wrong way per say...I am just curious.:cool:

[Jeff Sudmeier]

Donnie,

I have always done the glue up in 3 parts. Two glue ups of two boards, then glue the 2 sections together. I have just gotten better results this way.

Now when I make my cutting boards I glue up all 20 peices at once, but I leave pleantly of room for planning :)

[Ron Fritz]

Donnie; this is an interesting question. I believe the answer depends on the width of the boards that you are gluing. I have glued large panels in sections (option 2) to help control warp-age, then did a final glue-up of the 2 sections. I haven't done a large table top, but I would assume that working in sections would also make it easier to handle.

[Shelley Bolster]

Donnie, I do most of my glue-up in sections for a couple of reasons. First, I just think you have a better joint but secondly I like to keep everything under 12" so I can run it through my planer to knock off any high spots along the joint. I then glue those pieces together so I only have one or two joints to worry about smoothing either with a hand plane or sander. On the occasion where I do glue up more than 2 pieces at a time, I make sure to use cauls to aid preventing the pressure from clamping causing the glue up to bow.

[Kirk (KC) Constable]

If it's only four boards, you should have plenty of time to work the joints. But it's all about what you're comfortable with. If the weather's right and I don't have a glue problem, I'll do as many as I can at one time.

KC

[Steve Clardy]

Just depends on the total width and length.
I did a 1 1/4x5'x12' a few years back, 6" boards. I think it took 3-4 stabs at it before it was glued up.

[Jim Becker]

'Depends on a number of things, including clamping capablities and the quality/flatness of the particular boards. If they are all dead-flat, doing a one-step glue-up is much easier. If not, two at a time makes for easier "pursuasion". If you have good cauls or a panel system, such as Plano...one step is what I'd do nearly all the time.

[Rob Russell]

I did multiple-board glueups all at once. The one thing I did learn, though, was that biscuits make the alignment much easier. The boards have a tendency to slide a bit - the glue makes the board edges slippery. I don't look at the biscuits as any sort of strength requirement (the glue does that), the biscuits keep the flat faces of the boards registered evenly to each other and that's nice.

[D.McDonnel "Mac"]

I'm with KC. I do as many boards as I can. Having said that I have my strategies in place to cope with the problems some of you mention.

When I was using PVA glue (white for longer open time) I'd keep a little play sand on hand and sprinkle the joint with a few grains, this keeps the boards from slip sliddin' away out of position. Proper clamping pressure will bury the sand in the joint.

I now use plastic resin glue and it has a looong open time so the mistakes made while hurrying have been eliminated. Also it doesn't seem as slippery as PVA.

I use Lee Valley's Veritas Panel Clamp setup. It lets me keep those several boards in the glueup even with each other while squeezing them together.

I have plenty of parallel jaw clamps that facilitate applying pressure between the previous mentioned panel clamps.

On really obstinate glue ups I will take additional cauls (with a slight crown down towards the boards) across the boards and clamp them together on the ends with c-clamps.

Hope this helps

Mac

[Alan Turner]

Mac
Your sand trick is a new one for me. Neat idea.