Gluing Boards Question

[Ed Gibbons]

The term I learned in Jr. High Shop was planking but I believe many now call it face jointing...

In any event, when I glue boards together, I often get "bowing". :rolleyes: Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
EG

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Might be the way the clamps are causing the pressure to lie more on one side than the other. This is typical of Pony style pipe clamps. Try placing your clamps on alternate sides of the glue up. Also the jointer may be betraying you with slightly out of square edges. You can either true up the jointer or flip the boards to each non-true joint finds it's compliment facing it. The down side to that is the angled joint edge will encourage the boards to slide aong the angle and delaminate before the glue fully sets.

[glenn bradley]

You don't mention the type of clamps being used. Pipe clamps 'center' about 3/4" above the pipe surface. I use strips of wood as a "table" to raise the wood pices to the proper height if I'm using pipe clamps. K-body clamps don't really seem to care as they clamp evenly across the jaw surface. My bet is the bow is being created by off center clamping much the same way you would cant clamp position on a carcas to bring it into square.