I recently glued up my first tabletop made of black cherry. I only have a table saw, planer and circular saw (no jointer). When I glued up the boards I ended up with gaps between the joints. To fill in the gaps I used a mixture of sawdust and wood glue and then sanded and it actually looked fine surprisingly. Next I stained the tabletop, but wasn’t happy with it because it was too dark. So then I sanded it and refinished it with tung oil and it looks awesome.
EXCEPT for the dark lines that run down the glue joints. The sawdust/glue mixture absorbed the first dark stain so deeply that I couldn’t sand it off. So now I have these dark lines running down the joints as shown in the image below.
My friend says to just rip these joints with the table saw and re-glue and they should fit back together perfectly this time without gaps. Is he right or does anyone have a better idea? Thanks
Replies
He is right, actually the poor glue joints do very little to hold the pieces together. Glue makes two boards adhere to one another by the interaction of both surfaces meeting under pressure, glue by itself, as a filler has no structural integrity.
+1. Rip and re-glue.
I'm with those guys. I have never seen a filler that accepts stain the same as the surrounding boards. It just doesn't work.
I also do not own a jointer. All of my panel glue ups come right off the table saw. On the rare occasion that panels don't meet perfectly, I run the edge through the saw again, and then glue up.
One of my cardinal rules has been that if something looks off during dry fit, fix it before touching the glue bottle. Glue and clamps don't fix mistakes.
Ditto. Run one board past the saw face down to auto-correct for the blade being slightly out of square.
+1 on what MJ said.
If you plan on staying in this game, you're going to need a router. You can do a reasonable job of jointing with a router, bearing bit and factory edge of MDF.
Robert, why not use a jointer, you can get a 6 inch used for $200 and be done with it.
Actually, Elmer's Wood Filler takes stain well enough to match surrounding wood.
Mikaol
Gulfstar,
You can make your own jointer for the price of a blade and one or two other fitments. $50-$70 for a very good one, assuming you can find a good chunk of wood or two for free in the firewood pile.
Not only to you get a good jointer, you learn some woodworking techniques whilst making it. :-)
Mine's nearly done.
Lataxe
If getting a used jointer (I did for $150) plan on getting a fresh set of blades and making a jig to set the blades. I will take some fiddling to get it dialed in. Just didn't want you to think that you bring it in and your ready to work.
If you have a good, sharp saw blade, theoretically you can saw the top apart and re-glue. A glue line rip blade is best for this purpose. It will be better to use a jointer to clean up the joints. Whatever you do, clamp up the boards dry before applying glue. Check that everything closes cleanly before glue up.
Use DAP plastic wood filler or Elmer's stainable wood filler which will cost you around $3-4 which is best as per my knowledge
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