Edge gluing boards

[Sammy]

I am making a chest with a top made of solid walnut glued on edge. Can't recall, so I'm asking:

Do I run the second edge through the jointer after cutting, or is the table saw edge good enough?

[James Thompson]

are you asking about the final edge of the top, or the edge that gets glued? The final edge wont need run through the jointer if that what your asking ???

[Doug Miller]

That depends on a lot of things: a) how well you have your table saw tuned b) how good a blade you have on the TS c) how good your technique is on the TS d) your personal tolerance for imperfection

Bottom line: if the table-sawn edge produces a joint that is close enough to satisfy you, then you don't need to joint after ripping. If it leaves gaps in the joint that you think are too big, then you need to joint.

-- Regards, Doug Miller (alphageek-at-milmac-dot-com)

[Cutter]

Some saws may produce a good edge for you but a secondary treatment either a jointer or router and straight edge is recommended.Aligning the edges with glue may be a more difficult task. Biscuits? Brads? splines?

[Wade Lippman]

What are you gluing? After cutting what? I only glue raw cut wood that has no edge until I give it one on the jointer.

[Woodman]

If you have a jointer, you might as well run the edge to be glued over it. Can't hurt, and why settle for something that could be second best :)

-- Regards,

Dean Bielanowski Editor, Online Tool Reviews

5 Reviews:

- Veritas Jointer Blade Sharpener

- Miller Dowel System

- Robert Sorby Woodturning Chisels

- Kwikstand Portable Table Saw Stand

- Bosch 3912 (GCM12) 12" Compound Miter Saw

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[Phisherman]

Place the boards together. If you see a gap anywhere along the seam or the edge is rough, you need to joint the edges. Make sure your jointer is 90 degrees. Get this inspection step right, it's too late after the glue-up.

[Swingman]

Hard to tell until you see how the boards stack up side by side. If you're not satisfied with the looks of things, joint. Even with a sharp Forrest WWII and well tuned cabinet saw, I'll often run opposing edges through the jointer.

[bs]

Sammy,

An additional step you can do to insure that the two edge joints you're gluing together match perfectly is to:

1. Layout your boards on your bench and put them in the best looking orientation to make the top.
2. Using chalk or pencil (lightly) mark the boards with a big V that goes across all boards. This marks the top face of each board and they can be easily placed back in the same order after jointing and keeping them in order for glue-up.
3. Be sure your jointer fence is perpendicular to the outfeed table. Perfection is nice but if your fence is off a bit due to warp, twist etc. don't be to concerned because the error will be cancelled out.
4. Take the first outside board of your top and place the working face (marked face) against the fence and joint the glue edge. I like to run a pencil line down the entire length of the board so after I joint it, the pencil line is totally gone verifying there are no low spots. I have my jointer set to take a .015" (15 thou) deep cut.

In a perfect world, the edge you just jointed would be at 90deg to the working face - assuming your fence and technique were perfect too. They're probably not perfect so...

1. Take the next board in line and joint the edge that will mate to the first board by having that edge pointing down (obviously) and the working face (marked face) away from the jointer face. When you joint this edge, it will be the complement and any error from 90 deg on the first edge joint will be cancelled by the opposite amount of error on the second boards edge.

If that doesn't make any sense, make up small practice table top using some scraps and practice and then the light will come on providing I didn't screw up my instructions above. Doing it becomes intuitive after awhile, writing it down makes you think - did I say that correctly? If I didn't, thousands will chime in and let you know.

As for gluing the boards, the technique I find that works nicely for me is to spread glue on one edge on one board, then slip the next edge up to it and then slide the boards back and forth on their edges to spread the glue evenly. This tends to help me from applying to much glue by not applying glue to both edges and gives me extra open time to insure board alignment. Agway's do a dry run first and go thru all the motions of glue-up but not using any glue. Have your clamps ready, culls and whatever else you may use to keep boards aligned.

Bob S.

[Mike G]

Depends on how good an edge you get from ripping it.

[Leon]

Some people do that but you can never be sure of the out come that results. If you joint every cut edge you cannot ever be sure to have boards with the "exact" width that they should be and most likely the edges of the boards will not be parallel. If you follow the rules, you use the jointer only to flatten or straighten a board prior to using a thickness planer or ripping the board. If you joint each edge to be glued, you will end up with a taper as a jointer does not afford a way to keep the board edges parallel. Ideally you will joint the boards on 1 edge only to make that edge straight and then make the opposite edge of the board parallel on the table saw. If your table saw cut is not as smooth as the jointed edge, you need to evaluate that problem and consider tuning up your saw and making sure you are using a blade that makes clean smooth rips.

[Swingman]

Granted, I prefer to rip the joints on the table saw. BUT, joint with the opposite face against the fence of each succeeding board and you'll cancel out any error in your jointer fence alignment.

[Gfretwell]

Back a month or so ago I did a fairly controlled test of glues (yellow vs poly) and also sawn edge vs milled edge. With both glues the milled edge was at least

50% stronger than sawn using maple. It surprised me too.

[Leon]

;~) I was not even considering fence alignment being out of square. Even a perfectly set up jointer will give you less than perfect results with non parallel edges if you joint both edges of the board.

[Leon]

You found that a smooth glued surface was stronger than a more rough glued surface and were surprised?

That is the way it is suppose to work.. While I indicated that you should use a TS to prepare one of the board edges as a glue edge vs. using a jointer for both edges, I do not want to mislead that the TS produces a rough cut. My TS and blade combination puts my jointer to shame when comparing smoothness of edges.

[Swingman]

I think you're missing the point, Leon. :)

Edges do not have to be parallel to glue up flat without gaps, they just need to be complementary angles that equal 180 degrees.

Granted, this is "non-standard" usage of your jointer, if you will, but still effective when necessary.

[Leon]

;~) No, I got your point Swingman.. and, you did make a good point and or tip.... I think I probably did not explain why glueing up non parallel boards is "not always" OK. I build a lot of furniture with contrasting color woods. Very often the tops will have multiple color woods around the perimeter. With glued up pieces of contransting wood for these borders and these being 45ed in the corners the individual pieces must absolutely have parallel edges or they will not lighn up properly at the joints.

[Swingman]

Ahhh ...I see what you're talking about. Yes, you are absolutely correct and I agree. You would certainly want the outside edges of the panel to be dead 90 degrees to the face and parallel to its opposite edge. It was the interior joints of opposing boards I was referring to.

Sorry for the confusion.