Table top crack

[denis tuomey]

So you are building a 47" x 1" pedastal table from cherry , you've had the top glued up for about a month, already cut to size, you finally get the table pins in accurately, your ready to sand it down and put the profile on the edge and then you notice a crack from the edge of the last board on the outside edge of the top that runs in about 3", following the grain, the whole thickness of the top. So now what do you do .

[Prashun Patel]

"So now what do you do?"

If the crack looks natural, you can epoxy or butterly it.

But first, you should post a picture and take a day to really think about this b4 you go doing something rash.

[denis tuomey]

I was thinking of putting a 3/8 hole in from the edge, run a kreg screwin to pull it together, then plug it, think that would work ?

[Lee Schierer]

You can work glue into the crack with dental floss. The unwaxed kind works best.

[Chris Fournier]

Carefully apply paste wax around the crack area trying not to get the wax in the crack - this will prevent the glue from "staining" the wood. Apply "crazy glue" to the crack trying to only apply enough to wick into the crack. Capillary action will draw the glue in. Repeat until you are sure that the crack has enough glue. Use mineral spirits to remove the wax, sand and carry on.

this is the type of "crazy glue" that I would use: http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/pag...=1,110&p=42966

[Frank Drew]

Denis,

Similar thing happened to me once, and the top already had an inlay and was under finish. After the police talked me down from the ledge (!), I decided it was maybe fixable. Since the table had round ends, simple bar clamping wouldn't work, so I put a couple of hand screws parallel to each other on either side of the crack, cranked them down super tight (maybe with pieces of inner tube rubber between the table and the clamps, for extra holding power), then used a couple of f-style clamps to pull the hand screws together which neatly closed the crack. That was the practice run.

I think I used Weldwood's Plastic Resin Glue, mixed a bit thinly to get into the crack, and used a small vacuum cleaner's suction from underneath to pull glue well into the crack, then did the clamping for real. Worked, and it's still an invisible repair almost twenty years later, but I never want to see something like that again on a just-about-ready-to-deliver piece of furniture.

[mark r johnson]

If it were my table top I would cut that board out and replace it with a new one. Any attempt to glue it will only fail over time. A bow tie might work, but that does not look like the style you're looking for.

[Chris Fournier]

If it were my table top I would cut that board out and replace it with a new one. Any attempt to glue it will only fail over time. A bow tie might work, but that does not look like the style you're looking for.

In my experience there is no reason why this crack cannot be repaired for good, once and for all if the repair is done properly. This crack was pre-existant to the glue up so the crack is not a result of poor construction techniques except for the fact that it went undetected and that can happen all too easily.