Friends:
I could use some advise as I embark on an ambitious undertaking
: a large kitchen table about 78 x 36. I’ve started with a 16/4 plank of dry walnut 80×18 with one live edge. Took it to Shady Lane Tree Farm near Allentown, PA and had it resawn into 2- 5/4x80x18 stunning book matched boards. I own a 3 hp table saw and have access to an old Oliver Joiner. My hand plane skills are not up to the task.
1. How should I joint the two edges(which are bowed about 3/32’s) as simply as possible to prepare a glue joint?
2. Yellow glue and biscuits the correct approach?
3. Will mortised “bow ties” add strength to the joint?
The tabletop will sit on a heavy 4 legged cherry base.
Thanks for you kind assistance
Rick
The folks at Shady Lane are outstanding and sell their own milled local hardwoods at very fair prices-610-965-5612
Replies
Probably the best bet on jointing these boards is to use a straight edge (like you use in panel sawing) and a router. You should use a 1/2" shank bit, and I would use two or three passes setting the router deeper each time. On the last pass use a pattern bit that follows the already jointed surface.
You don't need no stinking biscuits on an edge to edge joint though they might help you keep the two surfaces aligned.
Bill
Thanks for your response. The router approach seems viable. The biscuits would help with the alignment. I do like the aesthetic of the bowties...kinda adds to the handmade approach to the project.
RegardsRick
And - -
You shouldn't need bow ties.
I do think you will probably need to hand plane the top unless you have a 36" planer.
Bill
I think you are going to make a mess of that without a hand plane. I'm sitting at a very similar table as I write. That joint should be match planed and sprung. And once the joint is done, that top should be hand planed to bring out the beauty of that wood.
This is one of the applications I think of when highlighting the superiority of hand tools over power tools. Hand tools will simply do this job better and easier and faster. Even if you had a great jointer, wrestling a board this big across it would be quite an ordeal.
You may need a Stanley #8 because a #7's blade may not be wide enough to match plane this.
Good Luck
Adam
sharp jointer knives on a well tuned jointer,
board size is NO problem.Install a High fence and install 2 corner block supported 90 degree
LLLLLLLL's and a accurately positioned roller stand about 3 feet away.All you need to do is push the plank thru.Have had no problems doing 15" 10 foot oak boards this way.
Adam:
Thanks for your response. What does is mean when the joint edge is "sprung".
I'll need to practice my hand planing skills and would very much enjoy having the ability to plane the surface of the planks. Rick
What are you doing this weekend? I live in Cinnaminson NJ. I have this job to do on a workbench I'm building.
Basically springing a joint is planing a little gap in the middle of the boards lengthwise. The idea is that you pull up the gap during clamping, which puts the ends compression. That compression, in theory will elliviate as the ends dry preventing a split. Pulling up 18" wide walnut won't be easy so the spring woud have to be very slight.
Adam
Hey Adam:
I live in Jenkintown after moving over the river from Mr Laurel. You are more than welcome to come on over or I would be happy to travel over to Jersey with boards in tow.
Let me know what you're thinking and thank youRick Mantell
Rick,
The router approach sounds good, as does the hand plane and jointer methods (definetly use trash boards for practice).
I do not believe biscuits will aid alignment as the surfaces are uneven, and have read biscuits do not add strength to edge joints. Also, when gluing, the biscuits inhibit clamping and aligning the edges. That long and wide a joint you will be working fast to get good alignment.
"Sprung" in this case I believe means if you look down the length of the edges to be glued, the center appears to be curved outward. When you clamp the boards this gap will be pulled together. How much to plane out-3/32" on each board sounds a bit much- I do not know. Other posters can give better advice.
I take wide glued up table tops to a local cabinet shop to be run through their wide belt sander, and then planed/scraped/sanded. Really worth the few $!
Pete
Great information. Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Much of what I do in my shop is more learning experience than craft and art. It's food for my soul but wish I had better skills. Being retired, I have the rest of my life to improve.
Regards,
Rick
If the old Oliver is in fine fettle, then use it. That size board shouldn't be a problem. It will be a challenge to keep it upright but the length ought to be handled by a jointer of good size. If the jointer isn't OK then buy Adam dinner and let him help. I've never had real good success using the router and straightedge technique. Any twist in the surfaces of the boards will affect the jointed edge. It would be an unimaginable stroke of good fortune to have the winding of both boards be just so, to counteract one-another. The router method works great on Corian, but that isn't wood, is it?
Hey.. thanks for your thoughtful reply.
So many options, so many chances to mess up, but then from my perspective, a great deal of woodworking involves problem solving. I think the fine craftsmen are brilliant problem solvers, although they probably make fewer questionable decisions.
Again, my thanks,
Rick
Here's my take on this:
Your question 1..... The answer depends on the state of your Oliver. Assuming it is as it should be then jointing two boards not even 7 foot long , 18 inches wide would be very quick and easy. Assuming you are fit the weight of one board is not too much: in fact the weight is an advantage, as is the thickness too. So I would run them over the machine, then handplane some spring into each board- maybe a total of one mmm or so-job for a #7 and not a thing the length of a railway line. If you are familiar with your machine it is possible to machine that spring in too but for one join it is better to handplane, especially as the best join will come form a handplaned surface. So it would be an ordinary butt join, and a lot quicker than doing it all by hand especially if you are not too hot at handplaning.
Question 2: I don't know what glues you have there. I think biscuits are not necessary, but if you are keen on them you might want to use three or four for alignment, but I think it preferable to use homemade tongues of solid wood for this,and a router. Again, the weight of these boards is to your advantage provided you do the glue up on a level surface so that your sash clamps are all in the same plane. If by chance the boards are not quite as straight as you would like then lay them concave side down onto the clamps. If you do the glue up on the floor then you can walk on them if need be to get them hard up against the clamps. Having good sash clamps makes this very easy-they should be heavy tee bar type such as Record used to make.... There is plenty of glue area surface since your boards are 5/4 so the join will be at least as strong as the wood.
Question 3: Bow ties could increase the strength of the join but if it is done properly this is not necessary.You may want to do them for the "feel good" factor and decoration , but if you just have to have them for added strength then you could do them on the under side, and not necessarily bow tie shape.
Once it joined up you will still have to do some handplaning and scraping with minimal fine sanding only. I would expect to have no more than half to one millimeter at most locally at the join to level off. Ofcourse there are other ways to level them off , such as the belt sander, but you still have to get rid of scratches.
Don't be intimidated by what you think are long wide and heavy boards: there are only two to be joined and Walnut is not a very heavy wood compared to some. The length means there will be some flex there, so again this is to your advantage: there is no need to expect them to be dead straight (although it is convenient) as the table frame and gravity will easily get the top straight.
Philip:
Great response with a ton of valuable info. This blog is like having a mentor over my shoulder 24/7. I'm thinking about giving the Oliver a try.
Rick
Rick - I recently had to joint several 6/4 currly maple boards (100+") into a table top. I ran into a few issues and i'll share my solutions with you. The basic technique is find a straight edge as long as the board, clamp it to the board you want to joint, use a router bit long enough to joint the full edge and away you go. 1) i used a piece of polished aluminum angle iron that was backed by a piece of plywood to keep it from flexing. this gave me a straight, smooth edge for the router to follow. worked great2) i found that the curliness made the router "wobble" ever so slightly as i traveled down the edge. this made for a bad glue line. i solved that by making a router base that was as long as a jointer plane. this gave plenty of surface edge to hold the base against the guide. the wobble disappeared and i got a straight edge on the wood3) if the board is slightly cupped as it lays horizontally, then the router bit will not be 90 degrees to level, but slightly off, depending on the degree of cupiness. this error can be forced to cxl out if you alternate boards, but it sounds like you won't (book matching) and i didn't because i choose which face because of the grain. you solve this by making the router base wider (as opposed to longer which cures the wobble), depending on the cupiness. As for the biscuits, they are very usefully for leveling. avoid them if you can, they just add an extra step and make you work really fast because they swell up quickly making it hard to adjust after a few (extremely short) minutes.
I thought of using a jack plane, but my lack of any skill there + the curly wood sounded like i need a better plan.
-yurij
Yurij:
Excellent game plan, rationale and problem solving. You presented a very workable approach. I still want to develop hand plane skills. The Philadelphia Furniture Workshop is offering a course on the hand plane in November and is being taught by Mario Rodriguez.
I'm probably going to go with your game plan.
Thanks very much
Rick
Yurij 's solution works well for me when the planks are heavy and difficult to keep stable on the jointer. The problem of the router bit not being 90 degrees to the edge due to "cuppiness" in the boards can be overcome by routing the edges of both boards simultaneously.
Clamp both boards to cross strips of scrap wood, e.g. a few 2x4's, with a gap between the two boards. If the router bit is a 1/2 " (12 mm) the gap can be approximately 3/8 " (10 mm). Clamp the guide to one board so that the router bit runs in the center of the gap. The two edges will now be routed so that any irregularity in one edge will be cancelled by the irregularity in the other edge. Slots will be cut in the cross strips.
Pieter - I was thinking of doing what you described. but the amount of coordination required (2 boards, lots more clamps, almost equal spacing between the boards, put me off. if i realized that it would cure the cuppiness, then i might have persued it. i'll probably try it next time. thx for the insight. -yurij
Come on guys,
Messing with routers, guide rails, longish lengths and thickish timbers when jointing solid timber is like learning to ride a Zebra rather than a horse. The objective is the same , the mode of transport appears similar, but the destination and road may be perilous.
It is just one join, the timber is neither overly heavy or cumbersome so the normal way is the way to go- this can either be with hand tools only, or a combination of machine and hand tools.
Routers n rails is for thin man made material-plywood etc.Philip Marcou
Philip,Ok being completely incompetent around horses I'll bite. Can anyone ride a zebra ?Also do you think he needs to face one side of each plank, or not, before jointing? I understand they are flexible enough to flatten out some on the base.
Edited 10/24/2008 12:22 am by roc
The cognoscenti will tell you that zebras are unridable, but you always get those who will try. Some even live to tell the tale.
"Also do you think he needs to face one side of each plank, or not, before jointing? I understand they are flexible enough to flatten out some on the base."
Well, there appears to be a problem because he says his hand planing skills are not great. So even if he uses the power jointer effectively there will still be a need for some hand work-unless it is to be a belt sanded job-which is inferior.
>>>>>>>Seems like the right time to learn to use a #7.<<<<<<<<<
I think there is no thicknesser available so I advocate use of that Oliver jointer to surface one face and two edges of each board, do the glue up and then level it all off including the unmachined faces using handplanes,scrapers, belt sanders, hired help or whatever.The surfaced faces would register on the sash clamp bars,and those on top are used to even out tension only/avoid cupping from having all clamps on the bottom.Very confusing yes/no?
If I had to do that job right now I would dimension each board first, then do the glue up. That is because I expect to make that join without having too much mis-alignment-i.e no more than a millimeter at worst. (You will now get an outcry saying that it is better to glue up the boards in a rough sawn state, then hand plane the whole thing to thickness....That is too much work for no reason and not the smart (and recognised) way to do it).
By "dimensioning" I mean 1) surface plane (joint) one face and one edge 2)tablesaw/band saw to width using that already machined edge to register on fence and 3) thickness plane to desired thickness (using a thickness planer)plus one mill or to 33 mm in this case 4)handplane and refine the two edges to be joined.
I would allow a relaxed 30 minutes to do that , ready for glueing up.
Philip Marcou
>zebras . . . you always get those who will try
ha, ha, ha, aaah, ha, ha, ha, Fun to watch no doubt ! 'Till the messy bit at the end.Roger all that.rmantell's hand planing skills not good now but planing two planks flat and at least two edges to mate ought to take care of that little problem by the time he is done jointing them up. Then he will have the skills to plane the final top.Edited 10/24/2008 2:04 am by roc
Edited 10/24/2008 2:11 am by roc
Lots of great advice in this thread.My additional 2c -Don't use biscuits. Avoid them at all cost, they will cause far more grief than they possibly could add for alignment.But 3 or 5 dowels accurately placed will aid alignment greatly. No glue in the dowel holes or on the dowels. Use LOTS of clamping cawls to keep the assembly flat and PLENTY of clamps. Buy more clamps if you don't have enough. This is not the place to save money!Clamp everything up dry several times to be sure of the sequence of things before the real gluing.Rich
Have I got an article for you ! To scrub plane a big plank like that by hand AFTER glue up is going to be hard on your back reaching across it. I would plane the individual planks nearly flat first, glue up, then do the final. If they remained fairly flat after resawing like that you must be living right !
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/SkillsAndTechniques/SkillsAndTechniquesPDF.aspx?id=24092
The hand power planer is cheep to in comparison with hand planes. Probably figure in the price for more blades. I have no experience with one of these so the article is all I got.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled