tabletop glueup

[fred henkin]

I am making a table top using 5 boards that are 7' long and 8" wide. Should I glue and clamp them all together in one process or glue up two boards then add boards in separate steps?

[Jim Becker]

The answer revolves around how well you can manage the weight and the required glue application steps, etc., within the glue's working time. If you want easier material handling, then gluing up two "two board" assemblies or a 2-board and a 3-board and finally putting it all together might make sense. But if you can handle the whole thing at once, it saves time. In all cases, having cauls available to keep things flat is a great practice.

[Randall J Cox]

When I built my workbench many years ago, only had a benchtop planer, so only glued up the width that would fit through the planer. Then glued those groups together very carefully. Like Jim said, use cauls to keep even. Randy

[Mikail Khan]

I try to do half at a time. So 3 boards and 2 boards. Then sand with drum sander. Edge joint in case edges got damaged then final glue up.

[Simon MacGowen]

I am making a table top using 5 boards that are 7' long and 8" wide. Should I glue and clamp them all together in one process or glue up two boards then add boards in separate steps?

No biscuits or dowels or dominos used? 5 boards glued at the same time is not advisable. Divide and conquer is my motto unless you have done large glue-ups a lot. There are few advantages of one large glue-up but more risks of all sorts.

Simon

[julian abram]

Glue a two board group, the three board group, then glue the two groups together. You'll have less anxiety and better lineup on the joints. Some dowels or biscuits would be your friends as you try to line up a 7' joint.

[Jamie Buxton]

I glue them up one by one. This lets me carefully align each board to minimize lippage. That, in turn, makes flattening the whole table top pretty quick. Whatever extra time I might invest in the gluing step I recover in the sanding step.

[Prashun Patel]

I prefer to do them one or two at a time. However, you don't have to wait until they are fully dry to add new board. I add strips as soon as every 30 minutes. That's convenient because I can simultaneously scrape off the squeeze out from the previous boards then.

[Brian Holcombe]

Two at a time, I do the same as Prashun and keep adding boards every 30 minutes.