There are any steps to consider in the process of edge-gluing lumber along with (1) lumber selection, (2) cutting to rough length, (3) ripping, (4) jointing, (5) grain matching, (6) biscuit joining, (7) gluing, (8) clamping and (9) thickness sanding. Just how you go about these steps depends on the health of the lumber, the capacity of your machinery and the final size of the glue-up.
Lumber Selection:
If at all possible, try to have all boards in the glue-up out of the same tree. If that is not possible, pick lumber that is of similar color and grain pattern. To my mind, the ideal glue-up looks like one, very wide board with the glue joints barely visible to the naked eye. Since this only an ideal, I all the time try to get as close to it as possible.
Another, less-important goal would be to have all boards in the glue-up of the same approximate width. I am not suggesting ripping the wider boards down to match the narrowest board as this would be a terrible waste of costly lumber. I do suggest, however, ripping very wide boards in two to minimize the possibility of curling due to changes in humidity after delivery.
Straight or ribbon grain makes the best homogeneous final appearance while wavy or swirly grain makes for an entertaining but more difficult glue-up. Swirly grain will want orientation of the private boards to minimize the whole of places that the grain line suddenly stops at the glue line rather than appearing to continue into another swirl in the adjacent board. This orientation is very subjective.
Cross-Cutting To Rough Length
I all the time rough-cut my lumber into lengths an inch longer than the distance of the final product. This allows the whole glue-up to be neatly trimmed to size after the glue is dry. It also makes the ripping and jointing process a lot easier as I will clarify below. The same is true for the width of the glue up: Make sure it is about an inch wider than the final stock after trimming.
Ripping
Kiln or air-dried lumber often decides to bow into a curve as it dries and this must be corrected before a glue-up can be accomplished. If my done glue-up is only 3 feet long and it is arrival out of a 14-foot bowed board, it will be far easier and frugal to get the curve out of the 3-foot pieces than it would to remove the curve from the whole 14-foot board before cross cutting. This is one intuit that you should all the time do your rough cross-cutting before ripping and jointing. another intuit is that a 14-foot, 2" thick x 12" wide board is pretty difficult to operate on a jointer or table saw.
If there is a bow in one or more of your rough-cut pieces, those pieces should first have the curved edges ripped off on the table saw. The concave side of the board should all the time be towards the fence. Measure from the fence out to the outside of the end of the board that is nearest the fence and set the fence to cut this width. Once you have trimmed off the convex side of the board, flip it over side-to-side and find the point where the outer edge of the board is closest to the fence (somewhere near the middle) and rip the board to that width. When all boards have been ripped straight, take them to the jointer.
Jointing
The jointing process should now be fairly easy in that the boards have been ripped straight. Take shallow depth cuts to minimize the possibility of tear-out. In loose-grained lumber with a lot of swirls on the face side, tear-out is sometimes unavoidable. If this happens, try running the board over the jointer head in the opposite direction. If the tear-outs persist, you will have no other option than to rip the tear-outs away on the table saw. You will then have a sawn edge in your glue-up. If you have a clean-cutting table saw blade like a recently sharpened Forrest Woodworker Ii, this should not be much of a problem, especially if you plan on using a biscuit joiner to secure your glue-up. You probably won't be able to tell which glue lines are jointed and which are ripped in the final product.
Grain Matching
Lay out all the boards on your work bench and dispose them for best appearance. Obviously, if one side of the final stock will show more than the other in a piece of furniture, then you will want to have the best-looking sides all on that side of the glue-up. Examples of this would be table tops and cabinet doors. You also must orient the boards so that the glue-lines are not accentuated, as discussed in the paragraph on lumber option above.
Biscuit Joining
Whenever possible, make sure that you biscuit-join your glue-ups. I say, "Whenever possible" because you will not be able to use a biscuit joiner on very thin lumber. On the other hand, very thin lumber (3/8", for instance) does not regularly have adequate impel to pop open a joint. So, with very thin lumber, you will simply be using glue without biscuits. With regard to lumber ¾" or thicker, I have seen a whole of table tops, cabinet doors and cabinet casings open up along a glue line after delivery. At this point, repairs are difficult or impossible so the extra step of biscuit joining is well worth the minor time and expense. Look on it as major ill insurance! If you don't yet own a biscuit joiner, there are a whole of great machines out there along with Porter Cable, Lamello and Freud. There are also two good alternatives to using a biscuit jointer: Those are the Festool Domino floating tenon joiner and the Freud Doweling Joiner. Distinct methods, same result.
When you have your boards laid out the way you want them in the glue-up, make sure all the ends are flush and the edge joints are touching. Double-check to make sure the glue-up will be about an inch wider than the final stock after trimming. With a builder's square or a straightedge mark a pencil line in 4" in from each end of the rough glue-up across the grain, crossing all glue lines but not continuing over the side edges of the glue-up. Make a similar pencil line across the grain at the mid-point of the boards. Make further pencil lines half-way in the middle of the other pencil lines until all pencil lines are about 6" apart.
Mark the boards on one end "A","B","C" or "1","2","3", etc. So that you can put them back together in the same order when it is time to glue them up. Put the boards aside and nail, screw or clamp a stop board (scrap) to the bench top, left to right in front of you and about a foot in from the edge of the bench. As you are applying pressure with the biscuit jointer, while production mortises for the biscuits, this stop board will keep the board you are mortising from entertaining away from you. Make a mortise wherever a pencil line touches a board edge on every board.
Glue-Up And Clamping
There are two ways to clamp up a glue-up: horizontally on the bench top and vertically with the first board mortised-edge-up in a woodworking vise on the end or side of the bench. In the case of horizontal glue up, place pipe or bar clamps about 2 feet apart on the bench top with the clamp handles hanging slightly over the edge of the bench. Pre-adjust the clamps to an inch larger opening than they will be when tightened. Place the first board on edge on top of and across the clamps with the mortises facing up. Do the same with all the boards, in order. Make sure you have adequate biscuits for the job ready.
A small dispensing glue bottle with adequate glue for the job should be within easy reach. The type of glue is important: If the glue dries too fast you will have big problems and if the glue dries too slowly, you will be losing necessary yield time. I like to use Franklin Titebond Glue indoors or Franklin Titebond Ii for outdoor applications. These are "aliphatic resin" type glues that can be honestly cleaned up with water. Ether recipe gives a very strong joint and has a reasonable, 45-minute clamping time. Both of these glues are widely ready in hardware stores, home improvement centers and woodworking stores.
Run about a 1/8"-thick glue line down the town of the edge of the first board, production sure that the glue drops into every biscuit mortise along the way. Then apply short glue lines on both sides of every mortise. This should consequent in adequate glue so that it appears squeezed out of both sides of every glue joint after clamping. Insert a biscuit into each mortise. With 2" lumber, you may need an extra glue line for the full distance of the joint. There is no such thing as too much glue because you can wipe up the excess with a wet rag. There is, however such a thing as not adequate glue and you will recognize that health when you see that glue is not being squeezed out of the full distance of both sides of the glue joint. That is called "starving the joint" and starved joints often open up later. Glue is cheap! Don't skimp on it!
Lay down the first board with the letter or whole up and the mortised edge away from you. Apply glue in the same manner to each succeeding board wherever there are mortises and place biscuits in the far edge of each board, except, of procedure the last board.
The board ends should be flush and the left clamp should be about 6" in from the end. The right clamp should be about 1-foot six inches in from the right end. This is because you will be placing alternately spaced clamps on the top side of the glue-up so that there is a clamp (top or bottom) about every foot. The top, right clamp will be in about 6" from the right end.
Once you have all of this in place, start tightening the clamp handles. Clamp all the bottom clamps finger tight, then the top clamps finger tight. Then, go down the row of clamps tightening them fully, bottom, top, bottom, top, etc. With a wet rag, wipe off most of the excess glue. Turn over the whole glue-up and wipe the other side. Look at your watch or clock and add 45 minutes to the time. This will be the minimum clamping time, any time after which you may remove the glue-up from the clamps. Mark this time on the glue-up with a felt pen. If you have multiple glue-ups, you can stand this glue-up against a wall to get it out of the way while it dries.
If you have been paying attention to the above, then you can frame out how to do a vertical glue-up in a vise which is suitable for smaller glue-ups and is easier to manage. The unlikeness is that when it comes time to apply the glue, you will clamp the first board at its town in the vise with the mortises facing up. Apply the glue and biscuits. Apply glue to the mating edge of the second board and place it in correct orientation on top of the first board, and so on. Place the first clamp 6" in from the end, in front, the second clamp a foot away from the first clamp, in back and so on.
Once your glue-up is out of the clamps, it is ready to be thickness sanded whether in a drum sander or wide-belt sander. If you don't have whether of these machines, don't worry. Most pro furniture-manufacturing shops in your area will be happy to thickness sand your glue-ups for an hourly rate. You might want to consider buying your own drum sander or wide-belt sander, if you can clarify the expense.
It is best to know the maximum width capacity of the sanding machine you will be using: 48"-wide glue-ups will not pass straight through a 36"-wide sander. If you know that you will have this limitation in advance, simply make two, 24" glue-ups and glue those together with biscuits after the thickness sanding is complete. The glue line won't be perfectly even and so it will have to be sanded true with a random orbit sander. Your glue-up should be sanded to at least 150 grit. 220 grit is even better. Trim the glue-up on the table saw to its final dimensions, rout the edges, if appropriate, and then random orbit sand the final piece to 220 or 320 grit before finishing.
For some woodworkers, gluing up lumber may not be the most entertaining part of the craft. It is one of the most important, however, because a glue-up done incorrectly can be a recipe for disaster. Furthermore, the way you orient the boards in the glue-up will have a continuing and irreversible consequent of the beauty of the done project.
Bob Gillespie
Woodworker
©2010 Robert M. Gillespie, Jr.
Woodworking 101 - How to Properly Edge-Glue Boards Into Panels
