Curved Chest Lid Glue up Help Needed

[Chris Dodge]

Hi guys. I have a quandry. I am building a hope chest for a neighbor girl for her sixteenth birthday. The top is going to be curved (see picture below of side view of lid). I am building the top out of 12 pieces of maple and after they are glued together I will sand them to a smooth curve. I have glued them into three sets of four boards and am now having trouble gluing the three sets to each other.

I have tried gluing only two of the sets of four together by holding each of the ends together with some hand screw clamps and then using six Bessey's to clamp from the front/back. But no matter what I do, when I tighten the Besseys, the glue joint splits apart. The hand screws won't hold it in place.

Has anyone ever made a chest like this and have they successfully glued up a lid like this? What did you do to glue it up? Thanks for the help!

74155

[Dan Barr]

I think the best thing to do is to make curved jigs to match the top (inner and outer surfaces) or you can hold the pieces by hand for a while. :D

Then you can clamp the jigs with the piece between and then apply pressure to the edges. Be careful of controlling teh squeeze-out. YOu dont want to glue the piece to the jig. You could put a piece of waxpaper on each side.

V/R

Dan

[Chris Dodge]

I think the best thing to do is to make curved jigs to match the top (inner and outer surfaces) or you can hold the pieces by hand for a while. :D

Then you can clamp the jigs with the piece between and then apply pressure to the edges. Be careful of controlling teh squeeze-out. YOu dont want to glue the piece to the jig. You could put a piece of waxpaper on each side.

V/R

Dan

Ya, I've been using waxpaper with the clamps.

[Bill Jepson]

Hi guys. I have a quandry. I am building a hope chest for a neighbor girl for her sixteenth birthday. The top is going to be curved (see picture below of side view of lid). I am building the top out of 12 pieces of maple and after they are glued together I will sand them to a smooth curve. I have glued them into three sets of four boards and am now having trouble gluing the three sets to each other.

I have tried gluing only two of the sets of four together by holding each of the ends together with some hand screw clamps and then using six Bessey's to clamp from the front/back. But no matter what I do, when I tighten the Besseys, the glue joint splits apart. The hand screws won't hold it in place.

Has anyone ever made a chest like this and have they successfully glued up a lid like this? What did you do to glue it up? Thanks for the help!

74155

Chris,
I did some pirate treasure chests for my grandsons. Same type of of top. What I did was to clamp up the sides using some scrap, and then be sure to check the fit. With something to press against you can use a strap clamp, (I used a motorcycle ratchet straps), I used some dropcloth plastic under the straps to shield from the glue. Worked great. I would suggest that you build the bottom frame first if you can. That makes it a lot easier. I used Titebond II for the glue up.
Bill

[glenn bradley]

I cut ribs out of MDF with the appropriate curve. Set my top pieces on them with wax paper between the ribs and the top pieces to stop the glue and band clamp them. Did that make sense?

[Paul Gatti]

David Marks just built a treasure chest with a curved lid like the one you're trying to build. Here is the link to the details.

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/shows_wwk/episode/0,2046,DIY_14350_26955,00.html

This link talks about building the form for the lid and gluing up the pieces. I hope it helps.

http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/ww_chests/article/0,2049,DIY_14440_2380916,00.html

[Jamie Buxton]

Here's a thread about how I clamp curved layups like coopered panels.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14650

[Chris Dodge]

Here's a thread about how I clamp curved layups like coopered panels.

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=14650

COOPERING!! That is what I needed to hear! I knew there had to be a name for this procedure but did not know what it was. I went to Finewoodworking.com and found some great articles on various ways to do this glueup. Many of them were listed by other posters above (Thanks for the input!). I ended up gluing the stave sets together by making three sets of cauls and using them to hold the stave sets in place. I also made some battens with angles cut along the edge so that the Bessey clamps would apply more even pressure to the staves. I'd take a picture of it to show you what I mean but my wife took the camera with her on a weekend trip to Palm Springs.

Thanks everyone for the input!

[John Fry]

I built a coopered door for a cabinet and made a clamping fixture for the glue up.

http://www.chiselandbit.com/yoda/yoda7.jpg

It was possible to glue the first couple of pairs of staves together without problem using ordinary clamping techniques. You can see them in the clamps in the upper left corner. Then I placed these pairs in the form and started gluing each additional stave one-at-a-time, clamping it to the previously glued group.