Hello
I have been reading and looking at several bench top designs and I have yet to see anyone using a dado to connect the slats for the top. I am sure there has to be a reason but I don’t know what it is. It would seem that more surface area would provide greater gluing area and be stronger when cured. I was hoping you could possibly explain it to me.
I have attached a picture from Sketchup that shows exactly what I am talking about in case I am using the wrong terms.
Thank you,
David
Replies
Face or edge gluing a top is 100% long grain to long grain. That long grain glue joint is as strong as it gets. A dado, biscuit, or domino only helps with edge alignment and does not increase glue joint strength. I recently glued up a 3"x24"x96" top and glued faces together, extremely strong joint as long as you get the faces to meet without any gaps.
You'd be wasting your time. As long as you've prepared the faces properly, you have so much surface area in the joints I don't think you could ever make them fail under normal circumstances -- my bench top is going on 25 years without joint failure. The only advantage to your proposal is ease of alignment during glue-up, but the time you spent preparing the joints that way would be far greater than the few minutes of care necessary to line things up before tightening the clamps.
Verne
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to cut it up and make something with it . . . what a waste!
David,
The joint you speak of is referred to as tongue and groove. Grooves are with the grain, dadoes are across the grain. There is sufficient long-grain surface for strength, so it's not needed in that regard. However, it can greatly lessen the stress during the glue-up and reduce the amount of time spent leveling the joint afterwards.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Outstanding!
Thank you all very much for the explanations. If you don't see people doing something there is usually a reason and now I know that reason.
Thank you for the education,
David
Wood bowling lanes use stock milled like that but they are nailed together on edge and it is necessary for alignment. Just face glue your top and use cauls for alignment.
Dick
My back starts hurting just thinking about nailing up the lanes. Been about 40 years since I worked for Brunswick. From your post I guess you nailed a few yourself.
mike
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled