I recently came into a few 2.5″ thick slabs — two hard ~86″ x 15″ hard maple and two walnut (~108″ x 15″ and ~48″ x 15″).
I have a very rough idea for a table in mind. I would glue up the two maple slabs with about 6″ of walnut between them. Maybe I would try to breadboard the ends as well to increase the length of the table somewhat.
Since I’ve never glued slabs that large for a dining table, I was wondering about the stability of a glue-up. Would there be any differences between a basic panel glue up and a glue up for incredibly heavy 2.5″ stock? Anything to affect the stability of a regular edge glue in this case?
Replies
No difference, just joint it and glue it up.
Sounds hokey, but follow your instincts.
Mikaol
As already mentioned, you can just joint and glue them. As long as the edges are jointed well there is plenty of surface area for the glue with slabs that thick.
It seems you have enough walnut to also ring the entire table with a 3” band of walnut. I’m thinking of a final top dimension of about 84” l x 42” w.
While the 2.5” thickness would be great for the walnut banding, the center maple and walnut need not be so thick. You may want to resaw the center boards to about 1” thick.
The table base may determine whether the top joints will require floating tenons or just glue. The ribs of a trestle base would support across the top. A pillar base would leave more top unsupported. Engineer testing of wood glue strength says the wood fibers will fail before the glue. But, I would be more comfortable with floating tenons as well, to facilitate alignment for the glue-up. The weight of the pieces is a bit much to finesse. I would glue pairs of boards, get them flat. Then glue the paired pieces.
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