Join two pieces of plywood end-to-end? Best joint?

Your can get 10' long plywood and for that matter veneer if you want. Just sho around. In my opinion, it would be better than having a seem.

This is done all the time in boatbuilding. Scarf joints are the most often used. I would recommend thinking hard before ordering a long sheet. A friend ordered a 16 foot sheet of plywood, at great expense, it had to be picked-up at the distributor. He found that it could not be carried on his station wagon. He went to the nearest hardware store, bought a handsaw, got the two pieces home and learned how to make a nice scarf joint. Dave

I have seen router bits that are designed to edge join plywood together.

Look around and I'm sure you can find a set.

Rob

I agree that a scarf joint would be best, but another option would be to cut to grooves into the ends that meet and connect them with a spline.

bad ascii art to follow: scarf (the angle would be much sharper (more acute)) ____________ ___________ | / / | | / / | | / / | |________ / / _____________|

Over that length you *will* be supporting and attaching it on a good strong frame. If you can get he 10' length home intact, do so. If not, join two with either a long spline (my preference, but there are pros here much more knowledgeable) or biscuits. Once joined and glued it should hold when screwed to the frame well enough.

Dan.

But would that be 36 or 54 degrees?? and which angle do I set on my Craftsman scarf joint cutter?? Greg

Hi Chris, How about a tongue-and-groove? You would have to do the cutting with a router. I had to chuckle when thinking about doing it on the TS. Have fun ! Joe

Others have suggested scarf joints, splines and other solutions. Here's another thought, it's what I did when faced with a problem similar to yours. I needed to join two pieces of 3/4" ply to make a

For an accompanying desk, I had to do several end to end joints at various angles, not to make one long board, but to do a built-in into a 5 sided U-shaped space. For these I used biscuit joints. Each section was also supported by the underlying framework. This desk now carries two 19" CRT monitors, printer, fax machine, answering machine and an ever-deepening pile of papers with no problem.

My $0.02 worth,

Ian

Got me giggling on that one. LOL. mahalo, jo4hn

You might think about tongue and groove or a glue joint (need router or shaper). A cleat glued and screwed to the underside will improve strength. mahalo, jo4hn p.s. A ten foot desk? You must be awfully busy. :-)

Sun, Apr 18, 2004, 4:07pm (EDT-3) cf snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com (Chris) claims: I'm a real newbie desktop out of oak plywood (probably 3/4"). ten foot piece of plywood

OK. I've read this several time, and the responses, and am still puzzled.

Do you want to make a desk, ten foot wide? Which would be one Hell of a large desk. Or, do you want to make a table, ten foot wide?

JOAT The Good are Innocent so they invented Justice. The Evil are Guilty so they invented Mercy.

- Unknown

Marine plywood used to come 12' long although I can't find an online source without more looking than I want to do right now (try M.L. Condon, they don't have an ecommerce site but if it's used for boatbuilding odds are they have it).

describes a couple of accepted methods of making structural joints for boatbuilding.

lists attachments for several brands of planer (hand-held planer, not fixed mount) for cutting scarfs acceptable for aircraft use.

I'm making it 10' long and a little over 2' wide. Thanks for the responses by the way...

Actually, it looks like a 4'x10' piece is a regular stock item. I think the opening is about 1/8" bigger than 10' so I may need some sort of shim to fill up the space. I wonder if there is a decorative way to fill the space on all three sides with some sort of a molding.