Planing Boards for Glued Up Panels, Sequence?

[Erich Weidner]

I'm working on a base cabinet for my tool chest. I decided to go 18" wide, so the 1x12 pine boards needed to be cut and glued up to get there.

I got the wind out of the first board for the to-be glued up panel and had a true face and edge. I then did the same thing to the next board but as it had some noticeable cupping, once I had my reference face and edge, it was a good 1/8" less thick than the first board. I went ahead and glued it up, but am wondering if this was the right approach.

Should both boards be thicknessed to that of the thinner of the two boards before glue up? Or since I just need one reference face, do it as I did and just clean up the glue line on one face and call it a day. The panel isn't of a consistent thickness, but will the joinery (dovetails) care?

[Herman Davie]

For me, I would have to have them the same thickness, but I have also glued up before that and I just planed the thicker board after glue up to match the thinner board as well. It would drive me crazy to do dovetails on a panel in two different thicknesses (just how my mind works).

[Ralph Boumenot]

My preferred way is to square the edges and glue it up with the faces as is. I do try to align one face edge across the glue up. After it has set I plane the faces straight, smooth and flush.

[Prashun Patel]

If power thicknessing I try to get them all to the same thickness - unless the thin one is on the edge of too-thin. Then I'll leave the others faintly proud so I can bring them all down to the thinnest one without having to plane the thinnest one any further.

If thicknessing by hand, I try to do all the rough thicknessing beforehand on individual boards. Just find it easier to work them individually. Having them very close also makes it a lot easier to align and glue them in some cases. But I can't do a s4s board perfectly, so it's just easier to glue them up when they are close enough s2s and almost same thickness, and then do all the truing on the final panel. I am a shortcut taker: often if that side of the panel isn't visible, I'll just true up the seams and wherever there's joinery, but don't care if it's not perfectly flat.

[Warren Mickley]

The most efficient handwork is to do no work on the faces of the boards until after the panel is glued up. Otherwise you have to flatten each individual board then flatten the whole thing after glue up.

This method is the best for conserving material also. Here is an example that illustrates this:
If you have a cupped board and you are working on the concave side, you can take material from each edge equally to make it flat, but you also have the option to take considerably more off one side or the other. By waiting until after glue up we preserve the option to do what is best after seeing the whole picture.

Years after coming to this conclusion myself, I realized that Peter Nicholson wrote about this method in 1812.

[Eric Rathhaus]

Warren, do you at least flatten and square the area where you'll join the boards. I'm trying to imagine how different methods of joining boards together to make a panel would go without first getting those area flat and square.

[Christopher Charles]

I do what Warren said when doing by hand-edge join all the boards first to get as flat a panel with rough faces first, flatten the 'reference' side and then thickness to a line on the other side. Sometimes this means not all the edge joints are perfectly square to the face, but rather are such that they mate well with each other.

Hope that helps.

[Warren Mickley]

Warren, do you at least flatten and square the area where you'll join the boards. I'm trying to imagine how different methods of joining boards together to make a panel would go without first getting those area flat and square.

Maybe you are thinking you cannot make an edge flat without a reference face. You can. In making a joint, it is sometimes helpful to use a square from a rough side, but the things we use for judging the flatness of an edge are a straight edge and winding sticks, and then checking with the mating board by placing it on top (with lower board still in vise).

The use of winding sticks on the edge is much more accurate and direct than depending on the flatness of a face side and testing with a try square. When resting one board on another, edge to edge, we can see if the upper board pivots from the middle (a board is humped) or rocks across corners (winding problem), or is hollow in the middle (board is concave). We can also see if the two boards line up nicely by putting a straight edge across both boards to see if the joint could be improved by sloping a bit to one side, so the boards when glued are not too convex or concave with respect to each other.

[Scott Clausen]

Using power I surface both boards to the same thickness and clamp in cauls. Using hand plane I make sure the wind isn't crazy or the two pieces won't compound it and get picky after glue up.

[steven c newman]

Hmmm...lets see what we got here...IF I can find the right panel glue up....
3 Store Rust Hunt, REALLY.JPG
Ok..that is out of the way..
Gazebo Table, top, needs jointed.JPG
Lets start here...Gazebo Table needed a top glued up...not the best of the selection..but...
Gazebo Table, getting a square edge.JPG
I was more concerned about getting a straight edge...no gaps between the 3 boards...
Gazebo Table, top, curvy.JPG
Trying to remove the curves....wound up adding a fourth board to the glue up...edges are all jointed straight, no gaps...then the panel is glued up..
Gazebo Table, top, caul details.JPG
I use cauls to get and keep things flat until after the glue has cured...a slight curve to the 2 cauls in the center seems to help out...
Gazebo Table, top one face smoothed.JPG
Out of the clamps..I worry about glue line clean-up...and see how flat the panel turned out...intent is to show the best looking face...little spots can be fine tuned..IF need be..
Gazebo Table, top, fine tune a spot.JPG
Since this is about a panel glue-up, I can stop here....rather than bore everybody with squaring the ends up, and prepping for bread board ends....
Gazebo Table, top, round the corners.JPG

IF things are going good ( and NOT on a Monday) I can even stack the board as I go. Until the entire panel is just sitting there...one edge board in the leg vise ( and clamped to the side of the bench at the other end) then each board is placed as it would be in the glue up....no glue was added...and just let them sit there on their own. I can even come back with the glue, clamps and cauls and do the glue-uo right on the edge of the bench....the cauls are a big help in keeping things lined up and flat....

Note: have been doing panel glue ups almost as long as Warren has.....I just might have learned something along the way?