Looking For Some Advice

[robliles]

I am currently building a "farmers" table out of red oak for a client. The top is 72"x 41", is to be butcher block-ish and is made up of 30 1.5" x 1.5" x 72" glued up strips of randomly selected red oak. I am able to glue up about six strips at a time before I start getting uncomfortable with the glue setting up too soon so that is what I am doing. After I get all the sections glued up, I will glue them all together to make up the top. In the meantime, I am wanting to run each section through my planer which is a Delta X5 15" retrofitted with a Byrd Shelix head. The purpose of this is to make the surface of each section as smooth and even as possible before I glue up the final top. While I am scraping off as much of the glue squeeze out as possible, there is some squeeze out remaining. Will this glue, which will have dried several days before running it through the planer, potentially damage the carbide cutters on the cutter head? Anyone have any opinions or experience with this type of action? Any advice will be appreciated.

Really looking forward to seeing everyone Saturday. Highs near 90 will be a big difference from last year!

Rob Liles

PS The legs are 3" square x 29" long red oak and are turned. Trying to turn any type of detail on red oak is about like herding cats. It is frustrating, irritating, and generally impossible and a waste of time

 

[Jeff]

Carbide is much harder than the glue so you should be fine to run each section through your planer. 3 sections to plane on each side?

 

[Mark Johnson]

I would knock off any glue that you can with a scraper after it has dried as well particularly any "beads". That way you can be reasonably sure you will not chip the carbide. I use a shurform tool to go over any joint lines just to take anything off that will come off. It only takes a minute or two and you are going to plane anyway. It is not a question of hardness of the steel vrs. carbide, but the brittleness comparison.

 

[llucas]

Yep, as above. Just scrape of the big globs (or not) with a paint scraper and run thru the planer...done it many times without any noticeable problems with the blades

 

[TENdriver]

Rob, I did a 78 inch laminate top for my workbench.

It sounds as if you’re doing yours in a similar fashion to the way that I also chose to do mine in sections.

It worked very well. I ended up carefully aligning the top (show) surface, and actually there was very minimal movement of the strips. I think doing it in sections gave me enough time and control to concentrate on the careful alignment.

I personally found that I could quickly and easily plane the surface with my Jack Plane and that ended up as my preferred method over running it through a power planer.

In my case, while I hadn’t planned on doing it that way, the hand planed surface ended up being more precise and much nicer.


BTW, because the top was so carefully aligned, I was able to use a credit card to scrape away the slightly set (still gummy) glue and virtually no glue was left. Hardened glue can chip hand plane blades.

 

[Gotcha6]

The old salt in the glue trick would help prevent slippage.......

 

[FlyingRon]

The old salt in the glue trick would help prevent slippage.......

Ah, the old salt in the glue trick.... second time I fell for it this month.

 

[Barry W]

The old salt in the glue trick would help prevent slippage.......

Okay, Dennis, I'm the dumb one. Are you kidding or is this an actual tip? I welcome any advice on how to prevent glue slippage.

 

[Gotcha6]

Saw it on one of the TV shows. An old timer said keep a box of table salt in your shop. When you want to do a glue up and avoid slippage, sprinkle a light amount of salt into the applied glue. It won't hurt the glue, and it acts to bite into the mating wood members and prevent the slippage of the glue. You only need a small amount. It acts like sand in the joint but without the abrasiveness.

 

[Jeff]

Cauls clamped across the boards being glued and clamped keeps the boards aligned without slippage.

 

[ncfromnc]

I put a few brads in one board and "nip" them off leaving a small bit sticking out. NO Slippage.