Solid Wood Top

[Dennis Puskar]

I am gluing up stock to make a top for a cherry dresser,the top will be 18" X 66", what is the widest board you have used in a glue up ?

Dennis

[Jim Becker]

Oh, about 13"+ is the widest I've used. The wider the better for me...if I had an 18+" board, I'd likely opt for that for the project you describe. Really, I would.

If you are worried about instability, if the material you use is dried correctly and you make provisions for wood movement in your construction, there is no issue. When you have a top that is a "show" item, too many boards makes for an incredible challenge to match for color and grain. While that may be an advantage when working with certain figured stock, such as tiger maple, for an alternating strip design, for a solid top, it's a lot easier to get nearly invisible glue joints by working with fewer, but high quality boards.

[Ron Jones near Indy]

I think about 12" would be the widest I have used in a glue up. I must agree with what Jim said on the subject. It's often said to rip a wide board and keep the grain in the same direction while turning it to alternate annual rings. Not really bad advise. But in this situation, I would go with the wider piece IF I knew it had been properly dried.

[Richard M. Wolfe]

The widest I've used was about 16" - it went into a tabletop. I couldn't tell you how it held up as it's sold and gone. But as far as I know I haven't had anyone come looking for me. Getting quality wide stock is the problem.....avoiding the pith means using a pretty good size tree for a board. I'm in the process now of sizing some solid stock that will be wider than that but will not be part of a glueup.

[Travis Rassat]

I like to divide the total width by 3 - I think an odd number of equal-width boards looks nice, but that's just my personal taste. In your case, (3) 6" wide boards would be great.

On the other hand, if you have a beautiful, wider center piece (or perhaps "centerpiece" would be the appropriate term), framing it with two equal-width pieces could look really cool too, but the widths of the frame pieces would need to be right to be in proportion - perhaps using the Golden Ratio would be good. A lot of it depends on the style of the piece, and what feels right.

Good luck with that dresser! :)

[Dennis Puskar]

Thanks Jim, Ron for your input, instability is my main concern the cherry I have is 13" wide and has been setting for 15 years or more so I think I am going to use it.

Thanks again
Dennis

[Frank Drew]

For that job I'd use one wide board if by luck I had something that wide, or two at a maximum, and if at all possible the two boards would be from the same tree.

As the quality of our work reaches a certain level, IMO it's important also to raise the level of our material selection. To my eye, nothing looks better, or more resolved, than a table top made from wide, matched, flitch-sawn stock, with the pattern of the grain pattern complete and centered. And conversely, nothing worse than a top made from random width, randomly sawn boards, some light, some dark, whatever...

As another example, there's a completely different look to a chest of drawers with the drawer fronts all single boards, ideally from the same tree, compared to (horrors!) glued-up drawer fronts, drawn from a random assortment of boards. Subtle at first, maybe, but when you get the difference, you get it.

[alex grams]

The wider the better for me, it helps highlight the individual board. And I am so particular (as I am sure many on this forum are) about trying to get boards to match up in a complimentary way.

I can't rememeber who, but someone has the quote in their signature of:

'There is a special place in hell for anyone who uses a narrower board than they have to'

[Steve Schoene]

I've made table tops larger than that using a single wide board, and a 35" round tilt top table glued up from 2 boards. Dresser's are less problem, since there is plenty of structure to keep the top flat. The necessity of allowing for wood movement as the depth changes with the seasons is the same with a single wide board as with a panel glued up from many boards.

[Frank Drew]

'There is a special place in hell for anyone who uses a narrower board than they have to'

For me, "There's a special place in hell for someone who rips a beautiful wide board into 1x3s and 1x4s!" :eek:

[Dennis Puskar]

Thanks everybody for your help, top is made but not finished. I had 4 pcs of cherry 13" to 14" wide x 10' long from the same tree.

Dennis

PS. I know I am not going to hell.

[Joe Jensen]

I've made table tops larger than that using a single wide board, and a 35" round tilt top table glued up from 2 boards. Dresser's are less problem, since there is plenty of structure to keep the top flat. The necessity of allowing for wood movement as the depth changes with the seasons is the same with a single wide board as with a panel glued up from many boards.

I'd imagine this is true for quarter sawn boards, but if they are flat sawn, they will warp in one direction when the humidity changes and back the other way when the humidity returns. True?

[Greg Robbins]

Since they're from the same tree and you have to glue 2 of them together, book matching the two pieces may be a possibility if. I've done this many times and I personally like the look.

[Steve Schoene]

The warping force is small enough that for applications where the top is ssecured in place, to table rails or a dresser carcass, that kind of warping isn't noticible if it occurs. I notice no seasonal changes on the tilt-top table, but do notice a very small (less than 1/8") seasonal change with the uncaptured leaf of a card table. Of course, that's less than the warp you see in the original John Townsend table in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Theirs doesn't change because of the close humidity control, I'll bet it is flat with a little greater humidity such as would be found in Newport. I certainly wouldn't butcher the table with a bunch of alternating grain narrow boards.

[Jerry Olexa]

Wide is good IMHO. I've glued 12" w good results. Too many joints make for difficult grain matchups...