36
I assume you're talking about PVA glue. I think it just has a lot of desirable properties. Off the top of my head:
Water-based and non-toxic (unless you eat it) - no nasty fumes or health risks. This also means that it is easy to clean off of benches, brushes etc.
Dries quickly enough that you don't have to leave parts in clamps for several days, but not so ...
35
There is also a bit for routers that can make what is called a finger joint. It makes many narrow interlocking 'fingers' to increase the gluing surface area. This was designed for joining boards end to end.
27
You can use a long lap joint here, but one of the standard ways to join two boards like this when cutting by hand is to form what's called a scarf joint. This is approved by the Federal Aviation Administration so if it is strong enough for airplanes it probably will suffice for your use as well. The key for FAA approval is 12x to 15x angle measured as length/...
26
Dowels and biscuits are length-preserving, cheap and common ways of generating some long-grain glueing surface. They're not quite as strong as other solutions, but usually entirely sufficient.
For dowels, you only need a drill and transfer plugs (or a dowel jig, which is more expensive). If you don't even have transfer plugs, you can improvise them with a ...
22
Hoping to run into some more tests and calculations but this is a good start.
Yes
Clamps can be too tight and the joint could weaken or even warp, in a sense, if too much pressure is applied.
I found this out by accident using spring-style clamps to repair a break in a board. I left it out overnight for the glue to set with 3 spring clamps keeping it in ...
21
You can use screws, but in a slightly different manner. Instead of simply pre-drilling a hole and screwing the screw, you can use a router to create a slot with a countersink or counterbore bit.
Source: LeeValley
This slot will allow wood movement of your solid top while staying securely attached on your cross rails.
20
There are many hidden reinforcements you could use - biscuits, dowels, or more complex hidden joints such as these:
Mitred corner dovetail joint
Mitred blind dovetail joint
... but I wouldn't recommend them unless you have a lot of skill with a chisel, and a lot of time on your hands.
Both of these images are from here which is a really excellent site ...
20
There's two ways that immediately pop to mind- one involves spending a significant amount of money, the other a significant amount of time.
You can buy replacement miter gauges for most table saws (e.g. Incra) that are very very accurate. Couple that with a good tune-up, and you'll be cutting perfect miters in no time.
However, the other option is to make a ...
19
Indeed, when done properly, the glue is stronger than the wood itself when both of the glued faces are edge-grain or face-grain.
A few circumstances come to mind when glue alone is not stronger than the wood:
End Grain
When glue is applied to end-grain, the grain acts as little straws and draws a lot of the glue up the wood, away from the joint (similar ...
18
If you'd like to go the glue-only route, a lock miter might be just the thing. They are available as router bits and make a profile similar to this photo:
I could not say for certain whether the angle is complimentary to your design, most lock miters I find are for 90 degree joints which might be a pretty severe angle for a roof.
@Doresoom mentioned in ...
17
Why would someone do this? What problem might that solve or advantage would it convey?
If you have two rails joining a leg at right angles to each other, you sometimes need to miter the tenons to prevent them from interfering with each other.
I haven't seen the bench you're talking about, but it sounds like a typical case where you have rails connected to ...
16
What type of joint is most appropriate for portions of furniture that are likely to be screwed and unscrewed in order to move it around?
There are actually numerous options for this. The best choice(s) depend on the size and weight of the furniture, aesthetic concerns and the thickness and strength of the stock used.
At the most basic you can screw the ...
16
I'm glad someone finally asked a Question about alternatives to these jigs.
In the US at least, and probably in other parts of the world by now, pocket holes have become synonymous with Kreg. While they make good products that work exactly the way you'd hope, they can be expensive and their dominance of the market has led to a pervading belief among new ...
15
A common solution is to alternate your clamps between top and bottom:
Another solution is to clamp boards down across the panel as Drew suggested, although an even better variation on this solution is to use cauls, which start out curved but evenly distribute the pressure across the surface as they are flexed flat against both sides of the panel.
Read more ...
15
The Joiner* uses a jointer to joint ** smooth surfaces on pieces of wood, which he then joins together to make a joint. The practice of doing so is called joinery.
Gotta love English!
hat tips to *ewm and **datUser for the additional confusion!
15
Tabletops are often attached to the frame and aprons using tabletop fasteners such as these, which allow for some wood movement:
(Source)
This is what they look like installed:
(Source)
15
This is where you mortise right through the timber, and hammer wedges into the joint from the other side, in order to mechanically wedge the tenon into the joint. You still use glue as you normally would.
See here for examples.
I'll include the images here for future reference:
Outer wedged:
Inner wedged:
They're typically used when making doors, and ...
15
What type of joint is most appropriate for portions of furniture that are likely to be screwed and unscrewed in order to move it around?
There's an entire category of knock down hardware that's meant to let you easily assemble and disassemble furniture. You've probably used some of it when assembling pieces from stores like IKEA.
There are also some ...
15
The chippers in the stack may vary in height. You can test for that by making a single pass and see if it is smooth. If the chippers are ok, then it is likely technique.
Make sure you are holding the work piece down tightly against the table on each pass and make sure there is no sawdust accumulating under it.
If you have some uneven joints, you can ...
14
Very good question. I'll tell you how I use nails, though I'm not sure this is the "correct" answer.
When I don't have the patience to wait for the glue to dry. Typically, nailing is only needed to secure two pieces of wood until the wood dries (provided you have long grain to long grain contact). So, I pull out my brad nailer so I can move onto doing ...
14
I've been curious about this as well. Illustrated using my mastery of MS Paint, it appears you clamp the boards together, plane to your heart's content, then un-clamp and just flatten the boards out...
first (exagerated)
then...
13
The wood in your top will expand and contract in one direction, while the cross braces will expand and contract perpendicular to that.
There are a couple of different products and techniques that would help.
For a set of rails like the ones in your picture, consider 'figure 8' fasteners.
https://www.leevalley.com/US/Garden/page.aspx?p=50311&cat=3,41306,...
13
Whenever I'm joining wood together, no matter what type of joint, I turn to wood glue.
"Wood glue" isn't actually one thing. It's essentially a marketing term or selling aid more than a description of a specific product.
For a traditionalist the words wood glue would actually call to mind hot hide glue and nothing else. And both epoxy and presumably ...
13
Bear in mind that that 99 lbs is for a single joint with pressure being applied in the manner of a first class lever in Mr. Wandel's experiment. You will have multiple pocket holes in a given construction. Let's look at your table example. Most of that pressure is being distributed through the legs and into the floor, say you have four legs and four boards ...
13
Pocket hole joinery
One of the simplest ideas I could think of to address this would be to flip up the boards vertically and use pocket holes and screws into the legs.
Some good examples and picture come from a Community Project post about work benches: Community Project: Lets build a workbench!
Highlighting a picture from my unfinished work bench you can ...
13
When I first started woodworking I went out and got a router jig too. It seemed a lot easier than hand tools (of which I lacked good quality ones). Like you I was never really satisfied with machined results. More recently, with more time to pursue my hobby, I decided to bite the bullet and learn the traditional hand tool way. My first attempts were ...
12
Using a plow plane, you can quickly and easily make a groove and tongue joint like this:
If you want more stability, you can make that a dovetail, either starting from the groove and tongue or using hand saw and chisel only (or, well, a milling table!).
The tongue or dovetail should be perpendicular to the miter like so:
Of course a groove with loose ...
12
For something that large, I would want more than just a glue joint holding it together. I would want some sort of mechanical connection between the sides and top/bottom, such as slip tenons, dowels, or mortise and tenon.
If you want the look of a mitered corner, I'd suggest going with mitered half laps. The glue area is much larger, and you can pin the ...
12
The problem appears to be that glue has sealed the pores of the wood, preventing stain from penetrating. In order to fix the stain, you'll first need to get to wood that's not sealed. I can think of two options:
Remove the glue from the wood. You might be able to use a solvent appropriate to the kind of glue you used to loosen and weaken the glue, and then ...
12
How might this joint be constructed so that it is strong enough to prevent racking but still appear to be a miter?
It's not racking that is the major concern here, it would be (probably sudden!) failure of the glue line in one or both of the mitres.
The answers from WhatEvil and Matt cover many of the solutions. There are a number of variations on blind ...
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