Glue-up Help... Please!

[Keith Beck]

I'm currently in the process of making two more cutting boards like the ones featured in the latest edition of Wood. This is the first one I made:

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/DSC02908.jpg

Anyways, as recommended in the article, I've been gluing up the cutting boards in three manageable sections before I do the final glue-up. Unfortunately, for every one I've done, the glued-up sections all "bulge" in the middle, wherein the middles of the sections touch, but the edges all have a significant gap. Of course, this makes the final glue-up impossible without some extra work. I think you'll be able to see what I mean in the following pics:
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/DSC02982.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/DSC02981.jpg
I'm clamping the sections all the way across, so I'm pretty sure I'm getting adequate clamping pressure.

Luckily, I've been able to recover with a little hand plane work,
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/DSC02983.jpg
but of course, it makes those rows a little thinner than the rest.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Keith

[Bob Hoffmann]

Is it moisture from the glue?

If you let them sit for a week, will they straighten up? Do they straighten a little after a day?

[Doug Shepard]

Got any pics of them in the clamps?

[Dennis Peacock]

Keith,

I've experienced something like this before. The first time was my jointer was out of adjustment and each end was ever so slightly out of 90º so my pieces grew more and more out of "straight".:o My next adventure was gluing up a cutting board, but no where near as nice as yours and I found that my clamping was not real straight either. What I did was cut 3 layers of MDF and glued them together and shaved each side to where it was straight and true. I then made another one and then used one on each side of the glueup and applied the clamping pressure to the MDF that in turn clamped my wood straight and square. I did cover the MDF with wax paper so I wouldn't glue the wood to the MDF "blocking". By using this method to force me to clamp straight and provide even pressure across my glueup, I was able to resolve most all of my problem with warped after glued boards.

I'm not saying that your doing something wrong, I'm just saying what I've experienced in the past with a similar glueup and what I did to resolve it.

[Larry Copas]

Keith,
I made a bunch of boards few years ago and encountered the same problem. I tracked it down to my planer when running the boards after gluing the strips together. The problem was I used a hand hone to touch up my blades plus my old planer bed has a slight bow from several million feet of lumber through it. Normal woodworking and a thousandth or two of error will never be seen...but when you start gluing numerous strips together you see the error. I was always able to glue all the strips at one time, so any error wouldn’t be noticeable.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v12/5tucker/Woodnet%20stuff/f3a.jpg

Put together a tutorial few years ago on building the boards...gonna check out this Wood magazine to see if I can learn something new.

[Matt Guyrd]

What a timely thread...I am starting a few cutting boards (thanks to the Wood article) this weekend with hopes that they are presentable enough for Xmas gifts.

I will watch this one closely to eliminate similar issues. I will be sure to follow-up with my experiences.

Keith and Larry...both of your boards look top-shelf and provide inspiration. Larry, is your tutorial posted anywhere? I'd be interested in reading it!

Thanks!
Matt

[Howard Acheson]

Keith, as I said on the other forum, you are not getting even pressure in your clamping. The ends are getting more pressure than the middle of the glue up. You should either use cauls for across the edges to even out the clamping pressure or use a third clamp in the middle. Personally, I like the cauls solution. I used a couple of 2x4's 12" long. With three clamps you still may not get an even and equal pressure across the edge.

For others who want to make these cutting boards, the picture in the article shows the use of only two pipe clamps. If you do use only two, be sure to position them so that pressure is equalized along the joint (almost impossilbe) and do not clamp them too tight. That's a problem because you DO WANT TO CLAMP THEM TIGHT so that you get the strongest joint and minimal glue line.

[Keith Beck]

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

I probably should have made the problem a little clearer. After the boards are initially glued edge to edge, then planed, they're ripped into 1.25" strips and flipped so that the end grain is now facing up. At this point, I do a dry fit of the entire cutting board to ensure there are no gaps, then glue up the strips in three manageable sections of 7-8 strips each. After the glue dries, I find that when the three separate sections are put together, they touch in the middle, but not at the ends. You can see where they touch in the red circles below and where there are gaps in the blue squares.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/cuttingboard.jpg
It's as if the glue causes the section to bulge out in the middle. It's not a planer issue because they haven't been planed again at this point. I guess it must be some problem with the way I'm clamping, but as far as I can tell, I'm getting even clamping pressure all the way across. Sorry, but I don't have any pictures of the clamp set-up. I'm stumped. I guess in the future, I'll just glue and clamp the entire cutting board together at one time. Is that what you do Larry?

Keith

[Matt Guyrd]

Just a thought...the first glue up is to make the panel. Is this panel flat prior to cutting the strips? If it is slightly cupped and you turn the strips on edge it would reveal what you are showing in your picture (so my feable mind envisions).

Once the strips are cut, to create the pattern you flip every other strip. Is that correct? Do you pick the strip up and rotate 180-degrees horizontally, or do you flip it 180-degrees vertically?

When you dry fit, do you check for square? How about just after gluing and clamping...check for square then? I'm wondering if the cupping is happening before or after glue-up.

Just grasping at this point.

Matt

[Lars Thomas]

I wonder if the walnut is absorbing more moisture during the glue up then the other stock. I'd try to let it see for a few days to see what happens.

[Keith Beck]

Matt,

Yep, I checked that the panel was flat after I planed it. I also did a dry fit of all the pieces at one time to ensure there were no gaps. Everything looked good at that point. It wasn't until after the glue-up that the problem presented itself. I'm guessing it's a clamping pressure issue even though I spaced four clamps along each glue-up. I think on the next one I'll try gluing up the whole board at one time. That way, if it happens again, it'll only be the ends of the board I need to worry about. And Lars, I tried letting the first one I made sit a while, but it didn't do any good.

Keith

[Stan Mijal]

Keith,

I've just finished board # 10 last night and have experienced the same problems. After the first glue-up the boards are run through the planer on BOTH side, so the issue of non parallel strips doesn't seem to be the problem.

I finished two boards with Lee Valley's mineral oil and beeswax salad owl finish and noticed the face of the cutting board became uneven. Some of the wood (notably the walnut) seemes to soak up the finish and swell differentially with respect to the cherry and maple. (Also had same thing happen with Jatoba) So my guess would be that the walnut is absorbing more moisture from the glue, swelling and giving the bowed look. (If anything, alternating the direction of the cut pieces would compensate for many minor inconsistancies, but doesn't in this case)
I ran my glued up boards over the jointer making a couple of very thin passes, untill I could get an acceptable fit for gluing. (seems a lot easier than hand planing, but then I'm one of those power tool guys (not a big hand tooler)

[Keith Beck]

Trust me Stan, if I had a power jointer, that would have been the tool I would have used. Unfortunately, it's still on my short list, so I had to resort to Neanderthal methods.

Keith

[Larry Copas]

Matt,
I had the tutorial posted on another forum and it evaporated when they updated software. Still have a few pics though.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v12/5tucker/boards/f11.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v12/5tucker/boards/f30.jpg

Keith,
Yes...I clamp all the boards at once. TB 3 has a longer open time than TB 2 which helps, but you still can’t let any grass grow under your feet during glue up. It does take a lot of clamp pressure so I use the heavy duty beam clamps instead of pipe clamps or Bessey’s.

I haven’t read the Wood magazine article...hope the boss can find it at the book store today.

[Keith Beck]

Larry,

Those are beautiful! I'm guessing you use a router with an edge guide to do the drip moat? How about the handles? Do you also do those with a router? What kind of finish did you use and what's your finishing process?

Looks to me like you've already got the process down, so I doubt if you'll gleen much from the Wood article.

Keith

[Stan Mijal]

Keith,

Sorry about the jointer, just thought I'd offer a hint if you had one.
I like the board with red--is that bloodwood? Does it work well with tools/sanding?

I tried jotoba in lieu of cherry on a couple of boards, but the darn wood is so dense and hard, it takes next to forever just to belt sand it all flat!

I average about 3-5 minutes perside with 50 grit on all the maple/cherry/walnut boards, but up to 15-20 minutes to flatten the jotoba ones! I suppose jotoba should hold up well to scoring by knife marks, but there aren't going to be too many of those boards made for presents this year.

[Steven Peters]

I agree, those look amazing. They definitely give me some ideas.

[Larry Copas]

Larry,

Those are beautiful! I'm guessing you use a router with an edge guide to do the drip moat? How about the handles? Do you also do those with a router? What kind of finish did you use and what's your finishing process?

Looks to me like you've already got the process down, so I doubt if you'll gleen much from the Wood article.

Keith

The juice ring was done with a router and edge guide as you guessed. Finger grooves were done with a large diameter cove cutter on the shaper. Finish is a mineral oil paraffin mix.

[Keith Beck]

Stan - You guessed right, the first board is indeed Bloodwood. I can't compare it to Jatoba since I've never used it, but the Bloodwood is very heavy and dense. It took quite some time to belt sand too. At times, it didn't seem like I was making any headway on it with the belt sander. I'm sure it took some years off of my planer blades also.

Larry - Did you mix up your own Mineral Oil/Paraffin or can you buy it in a store? I used Butcher Block Oil on my first one, but if I can make up something on my own for cheaper, I'd be all over that.

Keith

[Stan Mijal]

Keith,

Here are some of the boards I've just about gotten completed. A few more coats of mineral oil on some, some were coated with beeswax/mineral oil mixture (much neater to work with).
I've tried different patterns/woods, and find I like most of the designs.

[Keith Beck]

Thanks to everyone for their feedback and support. I was able to finally get the boards finished up despite some of the issues I had.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/DSC03005.jpg

I also have a recent gloat to report. I won DW618PK router on ebay for $148. Seems to be a pretty good price for what I understand to be an excellent router.

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j114/ldoforcno/DSC03006.jpg

Keith

[Matt Guyrd]

Keith...very nice! Looks like you were able to square of the three pieces nicely. Have you made any cutting boards where you glued the entire block up at once yet?

I have a ton of cherry. Just picked up some hard maple and bloodwood. Sunday I will take delivery of some Walnut. Looking forward to trying some of the patterns out.

Thanks for posted!

Matt

[Keith Beck]

Matt,

Yeah, it took a bit of work, but I was finally able to get them "squared" away. I may try gluing up the entire block at once next time, I haven't decided yet. It takes quite a bit of time to glue that many strips up, so I'm a little worried about the open time on the glue.

Honestly, I doubt if I'll make another board with that much Bloodwood. Maybe as just an accent strip. I had some issues with chip out in the Bloodwood when I was routing the edges and it clogs the heck out of sandpaper. It's also a bit overpowering in my opinion when there's that much of it.

Keith


Keith...very nice! Looks like you were able to square of the three pieces nicely. Have you made any cutting boards where you glued the entire block up at once yet?

I have a ton of cherry. Just picked up some hard maple and bloodwood. Sunday I will take delivery of some Walnut. Looking forward to trying some of the patterns out.

Thanks for posted!

Matt