How to deal with only partial glue squeeze out?

[Michael Burnside]

Up to you. You could add glue, remove sander from dust collector and lightly sand to try and fill the gaps.

If you redo or for the future, look up in-out method for jointing boards or up-down method using a table saw. Sounds like your edges weren’t square. Alternate clamps and remember you don need thousands of lbs of pressure, just enough for a little squeeze out.

[Eric Schubert]

Alternatively, if you can get a straight, clean cut off the saw you don't need to use a plane. Users of sliding table saws often omit the jointer when edge gluing. It's not so easy on a cabinet saw but can be done. Straighten out one edge with a plane and feed that edge smoothly against the rip fence. You can alternate up/down faces when ripping to ensure complementary angles as on a jointer, but if the blade is set square that shouldn't be an issue.

If you rip the glue-up apart, and run the boards across your tablesaw taking off less than 1/32" on each side of the boards you can use a fine-toothed sharp blade and go straight to gluing the top together, without any more jointing work. I've used a cross-cut blade to do this in the past.

But you need to move the boards at a sure steady pace, not super fast, through the cut, without any wobble, so feather boards can help.

I'm tempted to rip the seams open again and reglue. However, my table saw is a DeWalt jobsite saw. The DWE7491RS, to be specific. The table is fairly short, the fence is short, and I just use feed rollers for infeed/outfeed, so keeping the piece flat against the fence has been a bit tricky on a board over 7ft in length. I think the arbor also has a little runout. I can see the blade wobble slightly as it coasts to a stop. So, I'm not entirely confident that ripping the seams will result in any less work than basically having to joint the edges all over again with a hand plane.

Edit: Also, my apologies for such delayed responses. I wasn't seeing any reply notifications in my email. Updated the thread subscription, so should be better now.

[Michael Burnside]

Eric, can you provide a picture of the workpiece?

[Josh Molaver]

IF you choose to rip the joint, a track saw would be ideal. Know anyone in your area who could help you?

[Dave Roock]

Hello, Just utilize as is. Most likely plenty of glue to hold for function. No sense over thinking & just wasting the maple would be foolish imo.

[Eric Schubert]

Eric, can you provide a picture of the workpiece?

IF you choose to rip the joint, a track saw would be ideal. Know anyone in your area who could help you?

Unfortunately, I do not know any other woodworkers in my area.

Hello, Just utilize as is. Most likely plenty of glue to hold for function. No sense over thinking & just wasting the maple would be foolish imo.

See below for photos of the piece. I was concerned about how much of the seam had a gap, so I took a very thin feeler gauge and slipped it into the seam. The gap on this piece seems to run about 12 inches. Most of it only seems to be a few mm deep, but one area of it does go deeper, with one particular spot reaching a depth of around 17-18mm, so there's a fairly significant space without a solid glue bond. I have a feeling it would make sense to at least rip that seam one open and reglue it.

I also tested a small gap on my larger slab for the long side of my L-shaped desk. That one doesn't go nearly as deep on much of the gap, but there's still maybe a foot-long length that I can slip the feeler gauge in anywhere from 3-6mm (1/8" to 1/4"). And, as with the shorter slab, there's one particular spot that I was able to slip my 0.004" feeler gauge nearly all the way to the other side of the glue jointMy pieces are approximately 1.35" (34.25mm) thick, so there's still a good amount with glue in the seam. That one I may just fill in with some glue and sawdust to clean up a bit, as ripping a 7ft+ length cleanly and in a straight line with just a job site saw is going to be a challenge.

Photo of the piece:


Closer look near the gap:

[Mel Fulks]

The gaps at the ends of the boards makes me think that the jointer out-feed table is too low. Many jointers are like that
in amateur shops ,and even some commercial shops. Out feed table should now raised a small amount , and two pieces
of wood checked together for fit until there are no open ends . Slight light showing at middle of the two pieces is good
for gluing stuff.

[Andrew Hughes]

If you don’t have the machinery to mill lumber flat and square just play the hand your dealt. That pic with your hand holding a ruler I think you can do better.
Good Luck

[Eric Schubert]

The gaps at the ends of the boards makes me think that the jointer out-feed table is too low. Many jointers are like that
in amateur shops ,and even some commercial shops. Out feed table should now raised a small amount , and two pieces
of wood checked together for fit until there are no open ends . Slight light showing at middle of the two pieces is good
for gluing stuff.

Thanks, Mel. But, as I mentioned above, this was done by hand. I do not own a jointer, aside from my rehabbed Stanley #7.

If you don’t have the machinery to mill lumber flat and square just play the hand your dealt. That pic with your hand holding a ruler I think you can do better.
Good Luck

Thanks, Andrew. I'm going to at least rip that one glue seam to start and see how it goes. I agree, I think I can probably improve on this.

[Mel Fulks]

Eric, good luck to you. I’m putting myself into a couple of days of “reading comprehension “

[Eric Schubert]

Eric, good luck to you. I’m putting myself into a couple of days of “reading comprehension “

LOL, all good, Mel. I taught a class today, so my brain is pretty toasted right now.

I did get the glue joint ripped open. I don't have a track saw, but I used my circular saw, a finishing blade, two passes to reach full depth, and a factory edge on some MDF as a straight edge. It's pretty good, but still needs a smidge of cleanup before gluing again. There's a fine step between cuts. But it wasn't so bad.

[Eric Schubert]

Well, one side of the glue joint cleaned up really easily. Nice and straight and square. The other side, however, has some really dark streaks that are super hard and it's tough to plane that stuff by hand, so things got out-of-square eventually. I tried taking some light passes with the saw again to straighten things out again, but it wasn't as easy with the circular saw. I think I'll try the table saw jointing technique again, after I verify the blade is square to the table, to see if that will do the trick.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I have nothing to add to this - other than to tag it for future reference.
The reference being,,,,,if you had a track saw, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

This is just another example of how a track saw can make a fairly difficult job a no brainer.
I swear, one of these days, I'm going to sort through the threads and compile a bunch of links so that when someone says that track saws are only good for breaking down sheet goods, I can point out all the other things they can do.

[Michael Burnside]

Glad you're able to make progress. If you don't have to fix a mistake from time-to-time, you're not a real woodworker or you're not pushing yourself hard enough.

One tip on glue-ups. Clamp, set timer for 1.5-2 hours (longer if colder) or until the squeezed out glue is soft but not runny. Gently remove from clamps as needed, scrape glue lines with card scraper, then gently clamp things back up but do NOT over tighten, just make contact and then 1/8th turn (the glue is already doing the work!). Remove clamps in another few hours or next day. I learned this years ago from a pro and it works with minimal cleanup required and little to no risk of glue lines showing up in the final stain.

[Eric Schubert]

I have nothing to add to this - other than to tag it for future reference.
The reference being,,,,,if you had a track saw, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

This is just another example of how a track saw can make a fairly difficult job a no brainer.
I swear, one of these days, I'm going to sort through the threads and compile a bunch of links so that when someone says that track saws are only good for breaking down sheet goods, I can point out all the other things they can do.

Downside to track saws is they're usually quite a bit more expensive than a standard circular saw. In fact, a track saw would cost as much as my table saw. But, if it's something you'll use frequently enough to justify, I agree it would be worth the price tag. And it can even replace a table saw in quite a few instances. As you said, not just for sheet goods!

Glad you're able to make progress. If you don't have to fix a mistake from time-to-time, you're not a real woodworker or you're not pushing yourself hard enough.

One tip on glue-ups. Clamp, set timer for 1.5-2 hours (longer if colder) or until the squeezed out glue is soft but not runny. Gently remove from clamps as needed, scrape glue lines with card scraper, then gently clamp things back up but do NOT over tighten, just make contact and then 1/8th turn (the glue is already doing the work!). Remove clamps in another few hours or next day. I learned this years ago from a pro and it works with minimal cleanup required and little to no risk of glue lines showing up in the final stain.

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to give that a shot. I usually just leave the squeeze-out and scrape the beads off. But, if there's significant squeeze-out, then it's harder to scrape off. My orbital sander took it down pretty quickly, though, which is nice. I do like that it can minimize what shows up when finishing, though. I've had some glue that prevented stain from absorbing before and it's quite ugly!