What ideas do you have to help me with this glue up?

I am making a table top from 1/2" stock. There is a center rectangle about

11" x 13" made of baltic birch with a veneer on it. There are 4 mitered pieces of mahogany that are 2 1/2" wide that surround the rectangle. I will have biscuits to hold the pieces together. The problem I am trying to solve is how to hold it all together during glue up. The band on my band clamp is 1" wide. When I try to pull the table top together with my band clamp, the band wants to pull the sides up. One idea I had was to put a piece of 1/2" plywood under the table top. The dimensions of this plywood would be about 1/16th" less height and width than the table top so the band would pull the tabletop together without being obstructed by the piece underneath. That seems kind of iffy. Do any of you have a better/different idea?

TIA

Dick Snyder

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Dick Snyder
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Toss the band clamp and use cabinet clamps instead. If needed, put wax paper on top/bottom and use cauls to clamp in plane. But, if the edges are square, it shouldn't want to pull out of plane anyway.

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Reply to
dpb

When you say "cabinet clamps" are you referring to something like my Bessey K body clamps? The thing I like about the band clamp concept is that you get nearly simultaneous pressure in the horizontal and vertical directions to prevent the mitered edges from sliding. This isn't a huge tabletop as you saw from my original posting so I won't have a lot of room for clamps though there is room for two on the horizontal size and two on the vertical side.

Reply to
Dick Snyder

Dick Snyder wrote: ...

Yes. No larger than it is, two on each side will be all you need.

For alignment, the biscuits should put everything pretty much in place and keep it close; if the joints are accurate the pressure from the opposing sides will bring the four corners together as they are brought together gradually. Until completely tight, a judicious mallet tap should be all the persuasion required to make a last "tweak" if needed.

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Reply to
dpb

Yep. That worked fine. Thanks.

Dick

Reply to
Dick Snyder

Dick Snyder wrote: ...

Great--glad to hear it.

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Reply to
dpb

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