Sunday, August 04, 2019

Slab Glue Up

Ralph asked for photos of the slab glue up. The slab will have eight slats glued up two slats at a time for the first four slats.


My current thinking because this being Beech and Beech loves stupid wood tricks is to use the first two sets of two slats as a "backbone" and glue two slats to the outside of each of the first two sets. Then the final glue up will be the two sets of four slats. BTW, for the first two sets the four Beech slats are straight, the last four slats not so much, not bad for Beech but they definitely have peyronie's disease. I'll mix and match so the curves offset.

The first two slat set out of the clamps:


Cleaning up the glue line:


So far this has been no drama, life is easy just working one or two glue surfaces at a time. The only problem it stretches out the glue up over several days.

ken

4 comments:

  1. I like the way you are gluing it up. My slab bench will probably have 15 pieces to glue up. I might do the same but double it up.
    Another tip I got from Rob Cosman was to glue them up so the grain all runs in the same direction. That will make flattening eaiser.

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  2. Ralph,

    You may not have noticed, there are arrows on what I expect to be the top surface of each slat indicating grain direction. That way I know grain direction and top for the glue up.

    How wide do you plan for your slab to be? A 75mm (~3") X 360mm (~14") X 1800mm (~6') slab starts getting too heavy for one person to handle. I've found about 360mm to 400mm wide is almost a perfect sized work surface. The rest of the needed width can be made up of a secondary slab or a tool tray with no loss of function and it is a hell of a lot easier to handle during the build.

    ken

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  3. Wow!, First reference to Peyronie's ever seen in a WW blog! Ha! Man, I'll bet that chisel with the handle bent at an angle really comes in handy for glue clean-up.

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    Replies
    1. Matt,

      LOL, I got a kick out of posting that, a guy's gotta have some fun.

      That is most likely the cheapest chisel I own and my most used chisel. It is a true beater used for all the dirty jobs in the shop, the only exception is opening paint cans. It does not have a place in the chisel racks because it never leaves the bench. It is a WoodCraft branded chisel and I think I paid less than $30 USD for it. I should see if WoodCraft still carries it and buy another because if lost I would be lost. BTW, it also gets and keeps a pretty good edge even after chipping hard glue residue.

      ken

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