I am building my son a letter holder for his desk (my next project). To get the right width I need to edge glue some 1/4″ wood. I am using poplar. I usually use either dowels or a biscuit joiner to align the wood. Unfortunately I don’t have a jointer / planer yet.
Would appreciate some guidance on leveling the two pieces as they are glued and assembled. My standard pipe clamps seem overly large and bulky for the job.
thanks for the help,
Bandit
Replies
Looks like I'm your temporary guru today. A very simple way to deal with glueing up thin stuff is with a tape hinge. Lay the pieces on the bench and pull them together with a couple of pieces of masking tape. Flip them over, and run a strip of tape down the length of the joint. Take the first two pieces of tape off, fold the joint open, glue one edge, and fold it closed again. Lay something on top to keep it flat, being carefull not to glue it to your work . Definetly clean this glue joint up before it fully hardens, both sides. Tape hinge joints work very well for long miters, too.
Thanks for the sage advice. Will be in the shop tomorrow and give this a try.
bandit,A very simple way is to attach a couple of cleats to your workbench with partially driven finish nails and squeeze the boards together with a couple of longish wedges cut on the bandsaw. I lay down a sheet of wax paper on the workbench, put weight on top of the wood while it sets up. I un-clamp after about an hour and carefully remove all glue.
Bar Clamps work fine, just don't overtighten them so the piece tents. Use a caul with clamps to assure that it doesn't tent and/or a 9" concrete brick, CMU. I've even used a vise with stop and dog holes to clamp.
tape hinge sounds like a smart move.If you do use the bar clamps, use some spacer cleats to raise it so that the pressure is centered on the piece.this will prevent "tenting" also.if you are famiiar, using a double wedge between cleats is great for thin stock. if you need to know more about it, post me and i will give you the info, if not, that saves me a lot of typing ...haha...good luck
You can use any clamps you like, though pipe clamps will be a tad overkill. To keep the glue-up flat, clamp two boards perpendicular to the seams at each end. Either wax the edges to prevent it from sticking or notch out the areas over the seams so that glue doesn't contact it.
Chris @ www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com
(soon to be www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Poplar glues very well and I find that it is very stable after cutting (usually).
Unless I am using some 'fancy' wood that does not take glue well I never bother with 'dowels or a biscuit' or whatever for smaller objects to be glued..
thumbnailed said it well.
Masking tape and rubber bands are all you need.
With modern glues and well fitting joints you should have no problems. A small scrap block of wood with one corner cut off a bit so it does not receive any glue works well as a clamping guide 45/90 degree or whatever angle the edges meet at.
9" concrete brick, as scooter mentioned, or something like that works also.
I would say for a small project forget all the dowels and whatever. Should last several lifetimes if the gluing surfaces were flat and true.
But then again you never know what a teenager will do on a whim... May test the joints by throwing a book at it or something..
If a younger child he may try to stand on it!
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