Initial Thickness of Boards to be Edge Glued
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If the final thickness of a glued-up table top or cabinet side is to be 3/4 inches, what thickness should I aim to have after the boards are edge glued before planing to final thickness? Sometimes this involves edge gluing three boards together, and some glue scraping is necessary with a cabinet scraper after each gluing.
I appreciate the feedback on this technique – the boards will be prepared by hand planing and scraped by hand after glue up.Just curious but why does it have to be exactly 3/4 inch ? Doing stuff by hand means you dont have to work to the standard of the rest of the world. If it looks good at a 32Nd over whos going to measure it. Or under either one. As long as the fasteners dont come through the top it should be good.
I have delt with wood at the box stores that varied a 1/16 th of an inch. I just leveled the glue up and moved foreward.Thanks; I used 3/4 inch for reference – and I agree it doesn’t have to be that thickness. The edge glued boards will all have to be leveled to the same thickness so that is the reason for my question given that the boards would be glued up in sequence and scraped each time.
the boards dont have to be finished before the next is glued. Even paul mentions in the dining table video that a surface does not have to be totally level.
Just glue if up and flatten it off as smooth as possible and dont sweat the small stuff , just enjoy doing the project.
Hej Brian,
Mr. Jukka Huskanen recently published a post here on what looks like quite the nifty glue press. My two suggestions are a lot more primitive, as the attached drawing shows. Neither contraption will get edge glued boards fully level, but they go a good bit, particularly along the joint edges.
The drawing shows a substitute for clamps. Making them with an opening that is slightly tighter than the thickness of the boards, and much taller than what the drawing shows, pressure can applied on the surfaces. Fine crowns can increase the pressure. As can of course shims and wedges.
Cauls appear to be the traditional method. “Googling” ‘Cauls in woodworking’ worked fine. In my experience cauls should be tall. Whether complete flatness can be achieved I don’t know, but they do help in getting boards more level, particularly along the joint lines.
Sven-Olof Jansson
London, UK; Boston, MA
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