Gluing up cherry panel

[Slik Geek]

One caution about the solid cherry top: if the scraps came from different pieces of lumber, they may "age" differently. It may look really nice initially, but in a few years, one board may darken considerably more than the one next to it, significantly changing the appearance of your furniture. That may, or may not be an issue for you, but wanted you to be aware.

[linear]

I think you can get a gluable ripped edge on the BT3100 with the stock blade IF your fence is carefully squared, and you have a reasonable feed rate, and a clean sharp blade.

Cherry is notable for wanting to burn. If you own a router, you may want to look at some of the "edge jointing with a router" threads we have around here.

My advice: try it.

On the handplane, skip it. Save up for a good plane if you want to go that route.

[Tom Miller]

It all depends on your skill level with the plane; both in getting it to perform well, and you performing well with it. This isn't the best plane for jointing, but it could certainly be used to clean up an edge that's close to being ready for jointing from the table saw.

If you're not sure about the plane, it's also possible that you could get joint-ready edges (at least good enough) straight from the table saw. You should use featherboards to help achieve a very straight cut. After cutting to width, make a second cut of about half kerf width to clean up the edge. You may find this edge is acceptable for jointing as is. If you haven't bought the plane yet, I'd try this first.

I'm assuming you don't have a router....(?)

Regards,
Tom

[kwc]

Hello,

Newbie here. I'm starting my first "major" project -- a small bookcase for our office. I'm building it out of cherry plywood w/solid cherry trim, and would like to put a solid cherry top on it. The solid panel top is where I need some advice from those with more experience than I (should be most of you!).

I found some rough-cut cherry "shorts" (6' length) at our lumber yard, who planed them to S3S (6.5" x 13/16") for me. I plan to cut one into about 20" lengths, square the fourth edge of each with the table saw, and glue three pieces side-by-side to make the panel. Final dimension is ~17" x 16".

Here's the million-dollar question: since I don't have a joiner or a planer, is it possible to get these to match up reasonably well to look good? Can I successfully hand-plane the edges (and the face, once glued) with something like the GRÖZ Bench Plane, #3 Smooth, 9" #147636 available here:

http://www.woodcraft.com/family.aspx...lySpecial=True

Equipment cost, for the moment, is a concern... hence my desire to go with an inexpensive method such as a bench plane.

Also, can I route and cut across the grain after glue-up or will that affect the structural integrity of the panel?

Thanks for the advice,
kwc