Hi to All,
I am going to make a butcher block for a friend of mine and since this is my first attempt at such a project, I’d prefer to keep any surprises to a minimum. The block itself will be made of 8/4 hard maple. The final dimensions of the block will be 30″ L x 17.5″ W. I plan to cut my stock into boards 3′ in length, 2″ wide, and 1.75″ T. I will then glue these boards (ten of them) to make the block. Since I will need to glue and clamp ten of these boards, I may be pushing my “open time” with the glue if I attempt to glue them all at once. I’m considering gluing three, three, and four boards, then once the glue has cured, gluing these three parts together. Is this a reasonable approach? Any suggestions/tips are greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance for your help.
T2
Replies
I would use a glue joint profile to prepare the stock, glue up with epoxy in one set up (because of the long open time ).Leave it to cure.Clean up one side of squeeze out by hand and take a light pass on both sides with the planer.Then go and drink beer.Having said that your original idea will work but ensure that you use a water resistant glue.Depends on your shop equipment .Remember to tell your pal to oil both sides with mineral oil frequently.Do one side and it will cup
Thought you might be interested in this...
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/articles/2/index.html
I do work like this often and find that with Titebond 2 or 3 and applying the glue with a brush, there is plenty of open time to glue up all the boards in one pass. Just have all your clamps laid out and ready to go. You'll have 5-8 minutes to brush on the glue, align and clamp the boards.
Of course there is no problem with doing it in smaller batches.
Be sure to mark the grain direction of the boards; it will be easier to plane them later if the grain runs the same way in all the boards. That said, I usually book match my boards, which means the grain runs alternately in each board. Final flattening is done with a sander and cabinet scraper instead of running it through a planar, or hand planing.
Paul
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled