approach for 3x8 'butcherblock style' ash tabletop

[Bob Cooper]

I need to build a laundry table top for my wife measuring about 3'x8'. I have a good supply of Ash i'd like to use and i'd like to build it sort of butcherblock style but with the face (as opposed to endgrain or side) pointing up. Anyway i'm unsure exactly how to approach glueing this up.

My initial thoughts are to glue up 1, 2, 3 and let dry. Then 4, 6 and let dry and then 7, 8. But i'm unsure. Also it's not totally clear how you keep good pressure on the end to end joints to keep them really tight.

Can someone shed some light on this for me?

[Jamie Buxton]

Your gluing approach is going to get you in trouble. When you try to add later boards to the first glue-up, some of them are going to be trying to slide in between very tight surfaces. The better way to do it is to join short pieces into longer boards, each of which runs the full length of the table. Then you edge-joint the long boards, straightening out anything that might be necessary, and glue up the whole top.

To glue up the short pieces, you might consider using a finger-joint router bit -- that's what a manufacturing line would use -- or you could use biscuits or splines. Splines have the advantage that you can cut all the joinery on a table saw.

[J. Z. Guest]

I think Jamie's mostly on the mark, but I don't know about cutting the spline slots in the end of board #2. Even with a tall fence, that might be dicey.

Another option might be to dowel the end-to-end boards together.

I have to admit though, a laundry table seems like a waste of good Ash to me. I'd probably just use a melamine & plywood and maybe build the base and edge trim out of Ash. Pick your battles in other words. ;)

[Greg Funk]

I'd probably use a long straight sacrificial board as the first one and glue them up all at once. You should be able to get the boards tight on the end to end joints provided you can cobble together a long clamp from a couple of shorter ones. You won't need to apply clamping pressure while they dry so you can just use one clamp and tighten up each row one at a time. I would spline or dowel the end joints to help with alignment.

If you can't make a long clamp you could always use a few countertop connectors.

Greg

[Frank Drew]

Bob

Any way you can find full-length boards? Your job will be immeasurably easier, and the resulting construction much tighter, without all those end grain joints.

Nothing about "butcher block" mandates short lengths.

[Chris Padilla]

I'm with Jamie: first glue up the shorts into longer boards and then treat them as you would longer boards: joint and then edge glue.

Frankly, I don't think you need to do anything special to the end-grain to end-grain glue-up because that joint will only be "temporary" as soon they'll be edge-glue and then be plenty strong with that joint. I wouldn't mess with dowels, biscuits, splines, M&T, or Dominos for that eg-eg joint.

However, I wonder about gluing up long board from shorts that is over 96" long!! You may have to get creative with clamping. Hmmm, maybe pocket screws could solve the problem there? Extra long pipe clamps?

[Bob Cooper]

Hmmm....and when i agreed to do this i thought it was going to be pretty straightforward. That said, i kind of like the challenge. I don't think, though i'll check, i have enough long straight boards that are 8' long. i hadn't thought of essentially doing an entire row at a time. IF that works...that is, if i can create a single row that's half way stable then the rest seems pretty straightforward. It does seem though that i'd need to buy a fingerjoint bit or something like that to give that endgrain something to hold onto.For stability i will probably mount this on a piece of 3/4" plywood and put a good 1.5" edge around the front.yea, i know it seems like an overly nice laundry table but it compliments the ash desk and sink top....and i got a great deal on all the Ash.

[Bob Cooper]

Chris...i was writing while you posted. i thought about possibly using pocket screws as well. Those long boards are going to be kinda delicate until a couple are joined together.

One other thought is possibly just building a frame rather than plywood for added support.

Oh yea, not to make matters worse, actually i'd like to make a cut out near the laundry chute -- actually a curve. Let me see if i can quickly sketch it. The tricky part of this is the edge...i think im going to try building this up from small 1/16" pieces.