Gluing up cherry panel

[JimD]

Maybe I am not very picky but I sand after letting the glue dry an hour or more and have never noticed a thickness change at the glue joint. I also have heard people talk about a thickness change from a biscuit in the joint but I have not seen one. I usually work with oak but have used maple, walnut, and cherry. I also use gloss finishes which I would think would make a surface irregularity more obvious.

My boards typically do not lie flat. Sometimes the board was flat to start with but when you cut it up, it warps because of stresses that were balanced when it was one piece but become unbalanced when it is cut up. Could also be something else. I don't worry about it. I clamp at one end and then gradually clamp across the pieces pushing the unclamped end up and down to make the surface as flat as possible. I am putting stresses into the top but it doesn't seem to cause much of a problem. I am also talking about pretty small "warping", say 1/4 inch or less in 2 feet. If it was a lot more than this, I might think twice about using another board and cutting the warped piece up into door pieces or something narrower (which I have also done before).

Jim

[onedash]

The problem to me sounds like the lumber yard didn't properly prepare the lumber. If you run a warped board through the planer, you will get a thinner warped board. In order to properly prepare rough stock, you need to start by face jointing the board to get a flat face. Then, you would edge joint the board, refrencing the flat edge against the fend, and you will have a flat edge that is 90 degrees to one face. After that, you can plane the board to thickness, and rip it to width.
.

I'll second that. One time you can get away with this though is when making stiles and rails and even the panels I usually skip that first step.
I hit the edge on the jointer, cut to width on the table saw, and plane to required thickness. I made a bunch last night for my desk. no problems. I think it spoiled me though because I skipped it on some little walnut strips for a little door and i think its ever so slightly warped. I dont think it will cause any problems especially when I put the glass in, I ended up with less than perfect results by skipping it.

[onedash]

Be sure to wait several days to a week or more to flatten the top at the glue lines. Those areas will be swollen from the glue, so flattening too soon will result in a dip along those lines.

Regards,
Tom

Is this true???? I never heard that before. Even with biscuits I don't usually get perfect allignment on bigger panels. So the following day I usually go after them little ridges. Usually I use my glue scraper. So my kitchen table for example looks pretty flat but if you run your hand accross it you can feel that it is not perfectly flat...

[Tom Miller]

As it turns out, the Craftsman 21829 (BT3100 look-a-like) did an incredible job cleaning up the edges! The joints in the final glued up panel are perfect.

Sweet! And congratulations!

Regards,
Tom

[kwc]

ejstefl, I think you are exactly right -- the lumber yard didn't prepare the board properly.

My problem appears to be solved now. I gave up on using the warped board and cut two sections out of a second (very flat) board I had purchased at the same time.

As it turns out, the Craftsman 21829 (BT3100 look-a-like) did an incredible job cleaning up the edges! The joints in the final glued up panel are perfect.

Thanks for all the tips.

Regards,
kwc

[ejstefl]

The problem to me sounds like the lumber yard didn't properly prepare the lumber. If you run a warped board through the planer, you will get a thinner warped board. In order to properly prepare rough stock, you need to start by face jointing the board to get a flat face. Then, you would edge joint the board, refrencing the flat edge against the fend, and you will have a flat edge that is 90 degrees to one face. After that, you can plane the board to thickness, and rip it to width.

Without a jointer, the only way that I'm aware of to get a flat face would be to use a hand plane, which takes some skill.

[kwc]

Sounds like your panel warped after glue-up. In my case, they're warped beforehand, so I can't glue it without noticeable surface anomolies.

If you place weights on the boards to flatten them, won't they eventually assume their "natural" warped state again?

[Tarheel]

.............However: The boards are a little bit warped! When I lay the boards side-by-side, two of the three "rock" a little bit corner-to-corner. Yikes! It looks like surface planing or some serious sanding (belt or ROS) will be needed now to make the panel flat. The lumberyard planed rough-cut to S3S for me a week ago--so either they warped in the short storage period, or their planer didn't do an optimal job. Is this pretty common for most of you working with hardwood?

I suspect the best way to fix this is to run each through a surface planer. In the absence of that equipment, I may try gluing first, followed by sanding. Or is this simply wishful thinking?

Have seen this happen a couple of times when I glued up red oak and cherry. the panel ended up cupping a little on me. I think that my issue was that I didn't let the boards "acclimatize".sp to my shop environment before the glueup. I just layed the panel on a flat service and placed a bucket of stone (for weight)for a couple of days and lo n' behold I got lucky and the panel flettened out for me ok.

Lesson learned. Before hitting the planer to flatten stock, I let the wood lay around my shop for about a week or so to let it get familiar with the new environment.

Works for me! (Don't get discouraged, the panel is salvagible for sure)

Wayne

[kwc]

Well, I cut the board and cleaned up the edges using a half-kerf cut on the table saw. The edges fit together very nicely.

However: The boards are a little bit warped! When I lay the boards side-by-side, two of the three "rock" a little bit corner-to-corner. Yikes! It looks like surface planing or some serious sanding (belt or ROS) will be needed now to make the panel flat. The lumberyard planed rough-cut to S3S for me a week ago--so either they warped in the short storage period, or their planer didn't do an optimal job. Is this pretty common for most of you working with hardwood?

I suspect the best way to fix this is to run each through a surface planer. In the absence of that equipment, I may try gluing first, followed by sanding. Or is this simply wishful thinking?

[Tom Miller]

Be sure to wait several days to a week or more to flatten the top at the glue lines. Those areas will be swollen from the glue, so flattening too soon will result in a dip along those lines.

Taking care to keep the boards aligned for the glue-up will pay off later. Use cauls at the ends and in the middle.

Regards,
Tom

[JimD]

kwc,

I normally glue using edges sawn on the BT3100 and I have a jointer. With good technique, a clean blade, and a rip fence properly set, it should be a piece of cake. I agree with the comments on feed rate but cherry burning is much more of an issue with the blade buried in the board. To clean up the edge for glueing, you want to take off less than the width of the blade from an edge. That has much less tendency to burn.

To flatten the top, I guess a plane would work, never tried it, but I use a belt sander. A random orbit sander would also work, just will take longer. Be careful to align the edges of the pieces as closely as you can and a tabletop should not be that bad. I use a Ryobi 3x21 which I recommend highly. I got mine rebuilt from Cummins for about $60. I've seen it new at HD for $99. If that is too much and you have a ROS and patience, that will work. You have to move a belt sander around and not let it set for too long in one spot. If you do that, it will do the job quickly and well. A ROS is more error proof.

Jim

[kwc]

There's some great advice in your responses -- thanks for all the recommendations!

A router will be my next "major" purchase and appears to be the best option for me to joint the edges. Until then, I'll try Tom's recommendation to clean up the edge with a half-kerf cut. As for minimizing the burning when cutting Cherry, I've been using a featherboard whenever possible, so I'll push the speed to eliminate the charring. (Thanks, Garasaki.)

The panel will all come from the same board, so concerns over color (and hopefully the thickness) should be alleviated. If the surface isn't perfectly flat, however, after gluing, I may need to get a hand plane to smooth it out. I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Happy sawing,
kwc

[Garasaki]

I'm doing similar operations with my BT3k on cherry, but I am not gluing them up into panels so perfectly square isn't a major concern. But I did want to add the follow advice on cherry burning:

Feed rate > make it as fast as you can.

I've done 2 batches of boards that I've edge jointed both sides on the BT3k. The first set I was a little timid in my operations and took my time pushing the boards thru. I got nice edges, but occasional (nothing terrible) burn marks. I was much more comfortable with my machine on the second set of boards, and pushed them thru at nearly breakneck speeds, and they are clean as a whistle...not a burn mark on them. I found that a feedrate that JUUUUUUUUUUUUUUST makes the motor start to bog was the sweetspot.

One thing that was suggested that can help you achieve a good feedrate, is using featherboards to hold the stock to the fence. Between these and a featherboard holding the stock flat against the saw's table top (I assume you do that, for saftey's sake), the only job that leaves you is pushing the stock thru. So you can concentrate soley on that.

[drumpriest]

There is also the option of jointing the edges with a router. Over that size of distance it's VERY doable if you have a router table, or can reference off of a straight edge with a pattern or flush trim bit.

[atgcpaul]

If you can't get a glue-ready edge from your saw, get some practice with your
hand plane. That's what I do since I don't own a jointer. Go about half-way
down this page and he will explain jointing complementary edges with a hand
plane to achieve flat surfaces.

http://www.northwestwoodworking.com/.../article1.html

Paul