For those who often make solid wood table tops, I will appreciate to hear your preferences, in board preparation and gluing up.
1.) Using 4/4, 2FS, do you first remove all cupping on the jointer, then plane, edge joint and glue up?
2.) Or, do you just plane one side, use this as the top surface, edge joint and glue up?
3.) Or, do you just edge joint and glue up, finishing with a sander afterwards?
4.) Do you use biscuits, a joint bit, or nothing to align?
Replies
My order of operation is:
1. face joint and then thickness plane about 1/16" over - sticker and allow to rest for a week.
2. thickness plane to finished thickness.
3. edge joint and then rip and joint the opposing edge
4. glue up panels - depending on the size of the table top, I may use biscuits for ease in alignment. I don't typically use them if the length of stock is under 3 feet.
5. scrape joints and all surfaces and cut to final dimension
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Kell
Kell,
On average if you start with a 4/4 2FS (13/16") what thickness do you end up with, once you are done, using your method?
I know it depends on how much the board is cupped, but for me it's a choice between having a thinner perfectly true top, or a thicker top, which is smooth on the top end, but not perfectly true.
Jellyrug,
I'm starting my process from rough 4/4 lumber which is nominally 1 inch thick. It typically is slightly over 1 inch. When I'm finished, I usually get 13/16 or thicker. If the lumber is severely warped or twisted, I may end up with 3/4 or slightly under that but this can be overcome by rough cutting for length before the surfacing.
What you're describing is starting from what is commonly called s2s, surfaced two sides. In some lumber yards, this has been face jointed and planes to the thickness; more than likely it's simply been run through a planer which is why you're seeing cupping and warping. Face jointing removes this and gives you one face from which to work. It's a much better way to begin any project. I recomend that you start getting lumber in the rough if you want the straightest and most stable stock with which to build.
Good luck!
Kell
I have glued up several table tops over the years, some narrow and some wide. Recently I have made a pretty wide (42") cherry table, and used a few boards which were very wide themselves (~12").
I typically joint a flat surface and use this as a reference, and would recomend you do the same. For my 42" table this was not possible since I had a 6" jointer and did not want to rip them to a narrower dimension. [I felt there was something special about keeping the 12" chery boards wide.] For these wide boards I simply planed them to et them reasonably flat. The result was a pretty flat top but curved enough to make my breadboard attachment process a bit more complicated.
So if you can, let the boards sit around inside for a few weeks before you work on them, joint a flat surface on all boards with a jointer and then let them sit for a few days and recheck. Then plane to the thickness you desire, then joint a good edge (using your good face as a guide), then glue.
As far as biscuits and such ... I used to be a "purist" and never used biscuits or splines when gluing up boards. But keeping the boards flat with cauls and tape and such was/is a big pain, I think. Then about 7 years ago I started using splines, mostly for helping with alignment. About 1 year ago I purchased a biscuit joiner. A very good decision as now I can join boards quit effortlessly with very high precision alignment. I really like the vacuum attachment on the jointer as well; you'd be surprised how big a mess a biscuit jointer can make if not controlled.
I joint edges then glue up. I don't face joint any of the individual boards preferring instead to flatten the panel as a unit, which in my mind is the most logical approach to take.
Cstan,
How do you flatten the panel as a whole, say for something which is 40" wide?
I'm a handtool woodworker. I would flatten your panel with jack and jointer planes checking with a straightedge to monitor progress. I use regular aluminum carpenters levels as my reference straightedge(s).
A plane will flatten a panel a lot more effectively than a belt sander, although the job can most certainly be done with a belt sander.
Edited 12/17/2004 11:22 am ET by cstan
cstan,
I haven't tried the 100% hand tool approach yet, fear of the unknown I guess. About how long would you expect to take to flatten a 60" round table top with hand tools? I may try it.
Kell
haven't tried the 100% hand tool approach yet, fear of the unknown I guess. About how long would you expect to take to flatten a 60" round table top with hand tools? I may try it.
About 30 to 45 minutes for flattening. The resulting surface would be 'jack plane' smooth. Further moothing and scraping would take another 45 minutes or so. Just depends. An average tabletop takes me around two hours total to work from a rough glue up to ready for finishing.
What you are trying to emulate with a glued up board is the same starting point you would have had years ago when very wide boards were available and 'one board' tops were not necessarily rare.
If somebody presented you with a beautiful stack of Mahogany lumber 40+ inches wide I assume you would not rip and reglue the wood (if you did I would hunt you down and kill you). No, you would work the lumber as found - as wide boards. No real reason to treat a glue up much differently. Dress the lumber to a level sufficient for making your panel (usually a skim planing and edge jointing) glue the panel and then work it like it was one wide board. Very simple concept and not that difficult to do. You need to attempt to orient the grain in the individual boards in the same direction to make planing easier. Somebody else has already mentioned this.
Edited 12/17/2004 11:24 am ET by cstan
Thanks cstan! You wouldn't have to hunt me down to kill me for wasting those nice wide boards; I'd rather do it myself. I recently made walnut counter tops for our new kitchen and took very good care of 12 inch wide boards. Went to a local shop to face joint so I wouldn't have to cut them in half.
I've got a cherry dining table on the horizon. I may try your method for that one.
Kell
The skim planing step is important as it allows for grain and color matching/orientation. Rob Millard's discussion of the process is as good as any I've read and we can learn a lot from him.
I use power to prepare stock, so my method is geared that way. I find that certain woods, esp. white oak and hard maple, perhpas becuase of the drying process, will move a bit after initial prep. So, I flatten one side of all the parts on the jointer, and then plane to the max thickness. Start with the wood in your shop for a week or 2 to reach EMC. After the initial flattening and thicknessing, carefully sticker for a weeks or so, and rejoint and rethickness, again removing as little wood as possible. On both the initial and the second sessions, try to take roughly the same amount of wood from both sides of the boards, as this will keep the boards as flat as possible.
I then glue up, being careful to keep the grain running in the same directoin if possible to permit ease of hand planing later. For the glue up, I use no alignment such as biscuits or dowels. Instead, I have somde always ready (they live in the joists) 2 x 2's, quite straight. One side has packing tape applied to prevent glue sticking. 6 or 8 will do, with two wider and 4 or 6 narrower. Put the two wide ones on the bench, which must be flat, and then lay up your stock on these. They need to be tall enough so that the pipe or bar is below the supports by 1/4" or so. This way, when you glue, the flex in the bar or pipe will not force a hump into the gluing process. If the boards are not well aligned, which they should be, take two boards, again with the packing tape, and put them, top and bottom, perp. to the grain, on each end, and lightly clamp at each joint. This will force the wood into the same plane. With deep reach clamps, you can do this for the center section as well, but usually I just tap them into place.
Depending upon the wood, I will sometimes glue them up in several sections so that they are just narrower than my planer, which is 20". I will then plane the sections to final thickness, and then do a final glue up to full width. No problem to remove the glue with a scraper after it is dry, and to finish plane. Essentially no furhter flattening will then be required. The final planing is just with a smoother. Like others, I hate to sand, and if the wood is even a bit cooperative, I will not need to sand at all.
Alan
http://www.alanturnerfurnituremaker.com
I flatten and thickness before glue up. Since I always work from rough lumber I usually end up planing quite a bit off. It is a good idea to remove more or less the same amount of wood from each side when thickness, in order to maintain the moisture equilibrium. I avoid boards that are severely warped, twisted etc., because who knows what will happen down the road. I'll be honest and say while it is a good idea to sticker the stock for a few days, I never do ( although I always do this with drawer stock). I also never use narrow boards for tops, nor do I use biscuits. I must confess that at one point, when I was under the Thomas Moser spell, I used a belt sander to prepare tops for finish, but no more. There is no better surface than that left by a hand plane, or a scraper plane, and it doesn't take much (if any) longer than wrestling that dust spewing monster over the top. One point that you didn't ask about, but it is very important to the appearance. That is grain orientation. Many subscribe to the alternating growth rings rule, but this has little or no effect on stability and can have a devastating impact on the appearance. Wood is much like carpet, in that it can shift color depending from where it is viewed. In some species this is barely noticeable in others it can be dramatic ( curly maple being a prime example) I pay no attention to growth rings, or grain direction. I wet the wood down with paint thinner and look carefully for the "shift" in the grain and then orient the board accordingly. This may require looking through several more prepared boards, than is actually needed to make the top, in order to get the shift and grain patterns to make a pleasing top. I have attached 2 photos of a curly maple bureau that shows the effect of the grain shift. When viewed from one end the curl is very pronounced and nearly disappears when viewed from the other.
Rob Millard
Rob,
Good illustration of grain orientation!
How do you align your boards during glue up?
I always used a joint bit on my shaper, on boards which were perfectly flat, with excellent results. If my boards were not exactly true, I would use a joint bit in a router with a straight edge. Last night I purchased a Porter Cable plate joiner and used biscuits for the first time. I must admit, my results are not as good as previously although set up is real quick. Ended up with about 1/64" out of alignment in some places.
I'm not a hand tool guy, but agree with you about using a belt sander. I'm going to try your hand plane method, so far I only own one Stanley no 9 bench plane. What do I need? Will appreciate it if you give some direction as to your method. Also, do follow this same process on a surface with inlay?
Thanks for your reply
I have one of those same bits for my shaper, but I have never used it.In the rare instances that I glue up a top of more than two boards, I still only glue two at a time, so I have only one joint to deal with. A little persuasion with a mallet and some choice words have worked for me, to get things to line up.
If I had only one plane to work with, it would be a No. 6. This size plane is large enough to provide a true surface and has enough heft to ease the operation, but not so big it will wear you out. I use a scrub plane, a No. 7, a Clark and Williams wooden jointer, a Lie-Nielsen No 4 1/2, and occasionally a cabinet scraper ( Stanley no.80). The scrub plane is one I made with a 3/16" iron, but I also have good results with a jack plane with a convex blade.
Most of the work with the plane is done across or diagonally to the grain. Even the hardest wood will plane easily, across the grain. Check with a straight edge and back lighting to look for high spots and mark these, making in effect a topographic map of your top. Plane away these high spots and then switch to going with the grain. This is where things can get interesting , especially with some figured woods, but a finely set, sharp plane will overcome most, if not all problems ( this is where the cabinet scraper comes in). After a short learning curve you may not even need the straight edge, because the feedback from the plane will tell you how things are going. I do use the same approach for an inlaid surface. If the wood for the inlay is cooperative, I even plane them, but most of the time I use a hand scraper.
Rob Millard
Well now you've done it. Any chance that we could see pictures of the rest of that cabinet? Looks beautiful.
Here is a photo of the cabinet. Rob Millard
You have a beautiful figure Rob. Just kidding. I really like the bracket feet.
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