Re: Tabletop splitting

[Ross Hebeisen]

i wood suggest end coating ( the end grain) with sealer or wax as the wood dry's faster out the end grain, not a for sure solution but worth a try. ross

[Mel Graham]

i wood suggest end coating ( the end grain) with sealer or wax as the

Are the glued joints splitting? or the just random areas of the end grain splitting?

If your glue joints are splitting, my first thought would be (mainly since I am only visualizing) that the jointed edges might not have been perfectly straight.. and if so, maybe you had released your clamps a bit too soon. Being such thickness, those glue joints would need absolute dry time, and then some.

There are also other considerations that no one here could posibly know of, like the age of your glue, the persipitation ratio in your shop or area you live.. how dry the actual wood was at time of gluing, etc.. Its almost impossible to really define why you had this trouble without this knowlege. But those would be a start.

Only real fix, dependng on how severe, would be to rip the joints back down, and make a fresh joint.

[George]

Glue failure. Your friend is blameless. The heat from his sander couldn't soften glue through that much wood, which is a pretty good insulator, even if he could afford the sandpaper he'd go through heating it hard.

Why did the glue fail? One suggestion given, gaps too big for clamps. If the boards were poorly jointed, had snipe, or were squeezed real hard, they spring back. Could be only moisture change in the wood, don't know where you started or where you are now, but if it's significantly dryer, you may have a bit of modest wood failure from contraction, and if you starved the joint, might pop. Hard maple is good at that.

[Leon]

Rather than cut the ends off, unless you planned to any way, simply rip down the glue joint and reglue.

[Teamcasa]

Snip>

I agree. Using too much clamp pressure is the likely culprit. I've seen it and have done it before myself. I am really careful now and have switched to 100% K-Bodys, the round handle limits the clamping pressure. As opposed to crank-type handles. They are too easy to over-tighten.

Dave

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[Frank Drackman]

I assume that you are saying that a glue joint failed, not that the wood split.

I my best guess is that you didn't do a great job at the jointer. If you had to use clamps to pull the joint together then that is the answer. My suggestion is take time to dry fit everything before you glue. If the joints need more that slight pressure to come together go back to the jointer and fix the problem.

[lwasserm]

9" is a pretty wide board to begin with and sometimes maple can be a little brittle; I'm not sure what you mean by "pad sander" but I do't think normal sanding would produce enough heat fast enough to cause the cracks you describe. They sound like they are just the kind of cracks you'd get from using lumber that wasn't dry enough. You mentioned they were rough cut. Did the mill or lumberyard say what type of drying they had undergone?