Glue up

[Craig Ongley]

Just starting to get into wood working and I need some advice. I am glueing up some red oak to make some large end panels for a project. How do I get the glued edges so that they are tight with as little seam as possible? I have tried planeing them square, rasping and sanding but no matter what I do the edges just aren't tight. If I do end up with a small gap how do I deal with it so the gaps get closed so the panel looks like its one solid piece.
Thanks for your help in advance.
Craig

[Mike Wenzloff]

Hi Craig--and welcome.

You'll get a bunch of advice. My own thoughts are these.

First, a couple questions. When you say "planing them square" do mean via a handplane? If so, do you know the type and or the approxiamte length? How long/thick are the boards?

fwiw, it would take great skill to rasp a board of any length square and straight, so if you even got close you were doing well. Sanding, well, this can be done depending on whether you were using a good flat length of wood as a sanding block.

It is a difficult thing to do to get any glue-up so one cannot see the seams. Often the first clue is a change in grain. So it may never truly appear to be one solid piece, but with time and practice you may find you get better and better about fooling the eye.

Take care--and again, welcome.

Mike

[Dennis Peacock]

Craig,

1. Use a jointer to make them straight and 90º to a face.
2. Use a hand plane jointer like a Stanley jointer plane.
3. Build you a jig out of MDF that you can use with your router and use a 2 flute straight router bit to do the same job as a jointer. Just take lite passes. You would build the jig so that the jig is the guide for the router base and the cut edge of the MDF that has been cut with the router is now what marks the exact location of where you will cut on each successive pass with stock under that jig. Make sense? I forget which WW magazine it is, but one had an article in it this year that showed how to use a router to do the same job as a jointer.

Or....
use the old standby of get it close, caulk and paint. :p :p :D

[Scott Thornton]

You're going to need to joint the edges of the boards so they are square and square to the face.

Once you get one edge jointed square to the face, you'll need to joint the next board. What you'll end up with is a series of square boards that fit together nicely. Dry fit them before glueing and you'll get an idea for how tight the fit is.

If you're having trouble lining up or glueing, try using biscuits or get a glue joint router bit, you still need to joint everything square though.

There is a whole technique to clamping, I would suggest reading up on that.

To make the panel appear as one, you'll have to choose your wood carefully. Most people who know what they're looking for would be able to point out the different boards.

If you have the means, get some 12/4 or other thick boards, resaw them to get book matched, that helps with appearance.

Good luck and welcome to the Creek.

[Mike Cutler]

Craig.

First off. Welcome to Sawmill Creek. Pleased to meet ya'.

If I am understanding you correctly. You are trying to joint the edge of the boards so that the glue line will have no "gaps". Is this correct?

Here are a few techniques that may help if this is the problem.
Lay the boards out on the bench so that they are in the position thatyou want to glue them. Using a piece of chalk mark the board 1.2.3,etc and write the word "face" on them in chalk. This helps you to keep the orientaion of the boards, and the face you want exposed refeenced once you get caught up in the jointing and gluing.

Joint the edge of the boards, but here's a trick. with the boards marked as above, starting at board #1. Fold board #1, and #2 face to face as if they were a book. Joint the edges of both boards, on the glue edge. With the boards joined in this manner, any deviation in one board's edge will be reflected inveresely in the other board, and your joint will be tight.
Repeat this process for boards #2 and #3. 3&4,4&5,etc.. Your boards should be ready to glue at this point.

The following is a picture of an 24"x51" panel in glueup.
47033

A lot of clamps are involved, and cauls are used to pressure the faces flat. The cauls are covered with wax paper. The bottom set is layed out on the bench in position. All clamps are layed out in position, or near position. I put glue, in this case epoxy resin, on the edges, and lay the board on the cauls, but not touching. Once all of the boards have glue on the edges, and are layed out on the cauls. I clamp the cauls top and bottom, not super tight though. Then I work from the center out and tighten all of the horizontal clamps. I use a plastic dead blow mallet, and gently tap any seam that is not flush as felt with my fingers, and then tighten the cauls a little more. All glues squeeze out of the joint. After the initial tightening of the horizontal clamps. I wait a minute or two and check their tightness again starting at the center and working towards the outside. Epoxy is a lower pressure adhesive, so it doesn't take a lot of clamping pressure. The "yellow" glues require more clamping pressure.

I hope this answered your question, and that it wasn't too long winded.
:rolleyes:

Once again, Welcome to Sawmill Creek.

Mike

[Jim Dunn]

Welcome Craig.

[Steve Clardy]

Welcome Craig!

[Jesse Cloud]

Hey Craig,
Welcome to the creek. Great place for advice.

We could help better if you let us know what kind of tools you have. Do you have a jointer? A router? What type of plane do you have?

If you are without the tools that can get those boards square and straight, most hardwood dealers will mill the boards for you for a small price.

[tod evans]

welcome craig! if ya` live in the sticks feel free to bring your boards by and i`ll straightline `em for ya`...tod

[Nissim Avrahami]

Welcome Craig
Assuming you don’t have jointer, but you have router.
Have a look at this post to see (with pics) how I did it with the router.
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=37335

niki

[Craig Ongley]

Gentlemen:
Thanks for your replies. Your suggestions are most welcome to this rookie. I will be giving your suggestions a go and will let you know how it turns out. I have extra wood so I have spares if I really mess it up.:D

Thanks,
Craig