Glue is for Biscuits

The Biscuits are in the box, the glue is in the bottle, and they are both tasty.

They are called biscuits and how these little things ever started getting chewed upon beats me, they taste awful and really hurt coming back out. Biscuits are for joining, not eating.

Below you will find the story of four pieces of Fir that went through a whole lot of milling together, became good friends and are destined to spend the next hundred or so years hanging out together in the form of a round table.

So that little thing in the photo next to the square is called a pencil. I wear 'em in my hat. They are good for marking where to biscuit your pieces together with the square. marking the seams on all four pieces, remembering where your template will be when routering so as not to end up going through a biscuit and exposing it to the edge of your table,using the square gives you a straight set of lines. Simple step.

After marking the lines I set the depth of my biscuit joiner using the outside edge of the wood, which will be cut off when I use a template to make the table rounder than a square.

Adjusting the depth so that the joiner cuts exactly in the center of the width of my boards will help to prevent the table from warping or setting up unevenly.

If the boards are not biscuited in exactly the same spots it will affect the surface of the table badly. Running your hand over the table you would feel the rise and fall between the boards, and no amount of sanding this out will give you an even surface with a consistent thickness.

After all the biscuit holes are cut I sand the surfaces real lightly, to rid the joined edges of burrs and left overs. Next is glue and putting biscuits in the holes and setting up the clamps and bars.

Before the gluing happens I set up all my clamps, all my bars and all the big ass clamps I will need. Glue sets pretty quick and in order to be able to clean off the excess that pours out from the seams when clamped it is really important to have everything in arms reach and ready to go. When gluing the pieces together I make sure to line up all my marks exactly how they were drawn, thus making sure that the biscuits are sitting pretty in their little biscuit homes.

After putting glue over the holes and running the entire length of the boards I put in the biscuits and then slide all the pieces together. Using steel bars and clamping the top and bottom bars together across the pieces before putting the clamps across the table I make sure that the surface stays flat and even. Keeping all the boards seams perfectly flush with the steel bars works like a charm. The big ass clamps go on after all the bars go across.

All the clamps are on, so I clean all the glue coming out of the seams off with a wet cloth.

I then set the whole rig up on blocks and come back after 24 hours to take all the clamps off and begin the shaping and finishing process. stay tuned...

Planers and Joiners Eat Fingers for Breakfast

Here is the lowdown on what time in the shop actually entails.

The wood on the left is Fir. The wood on the right are Ski cores made of Aspen and Ash. This post is about what happened to the Fir.

My ol'Lady has had her eyes on a round side table from Ikea, and I can no longer support them when I can do it myself these days.

Using an existing 28" diameter template left over from a previous project, I have set out here to show you how I build and finish a round table. Built of Fir I found in Nelson BC in the winter of 2008, the wood has been hanging out in my wood pile awaiting a shape to be decided until now.

Dry, un-warped and with a very small crown on all of the 2x12's I found, I cut them down to 4 foot lengths giving me eight pieces to use, four of which I am using for this project.

Found wood is good wood. So aside from glue and biscuits, and the power to run the tools this project takes, and as I am doing this work in my spare time, the total cost of this table will be less than 20 bucks.

So the first step is to put a rough cut straight edge on the wood, just by running the best side of the wood against the fence of the table saw I cut the 12" down to 8". It is important to always give yourself a larger cut by a fair margine when you are going to be using the joiner and planner. Saving material to be cut off 1/16" of an inch at a time will allow you more flexibility when it comes to compensating for the woods inherent imperfections. It is easier to take more wood off than it is to put wood back on, as the price of a quality board stretcher is far to much these days.

Moving from the saw to the planer I need to put a roughly flat and square surface on the face of my boards. This surface will be used to put a square side on my board that I will be able to use on the saw to get a clean and square cut to width. Resting the board on the infeed table of the planer and holding the wood from the end, one gently pushes the board through the planer, allowing the feed rollers inside to pull the wood through and chisel away something like 132 cuts per inch as the board runs through. The planer can be adjusted for depth of cut into your wood, though I never take off more than 1/16th of an inch at a time. Taking off any more than that will bite you in the ass down the road as the wood tends to tear rather than be cut, exposing large divots in the grain that you will need to sand out or fill later(if possible) leading to an uneven and imperfect table surface.

After passing the wood through the planer once to get a roughly clean face I move to the joiner.

Check the photo of the fir on the left, in the photo at the top of the page, and compare it to after going through the planer above. See the difference?

I am using the joiner to put a totally straight side on the wood. The joiner spins a whole shitload of super sharp and scary chisel tips frighteningly fast, ripping the underside of your board a flat and square surface as you pass the board over the bit. This machine is fed electricity and fingers twice a month, and when taken care of properly will do an excellent job of helping you create perfectly square sides with which you can create flush joinery.

To use the joiner you hold the freshly planed face of the board against the fence, totally flush with the vertical steel wall, this is the key to getting a straight and square edge. The first pass you see above is step one on the joiner. This puts a square edge I will then use against the fence back on the table saw, giving me a perfectly straight board after cutting.

From the joiner I go back to the saw, cutting all the board lengths, resting the freshly joined side against the fence and cutting the boards to their final width of 7 and 3/4" wide. All the boards are now straight and feature totally square edges which is good when it comes time to biscuit them all together. Having the boards be straight and feature truly square edges means that I will have very tight seams between each piece after biscuiting and clamping it all together.

This gives a much better surface for rolling dice upon and prevents your table from rotting when drinks spill and are unable to seep into the cracks of your table. Very important.

Now the edges are done and it is back to the planer to get the wood down to its final thickness. This is also done to get the surface of the wood down to a grain pattern that I like. I planed these pieces down to 1 and 1/4" thick from the 1 and 5/8" they were at the start. Planing the wood a 1/16th" at a time and doing all the pieces consecutively, then lowering the planer depth another 1/16th" at a time insures that all your pieces are the same thickness when finished.

Both sides are planed, and thickness is checked periodically during the process using a thickness caliper,(available at Lee Valley Tools) which is pretty accurate and gives you a solid reading of where you are at in the process and how much further you need to go.

There are a number of problems I often run into when planing that are worth mentioning here. It is imperative that you are running very sharp blades, free of divots or chips. Any imperfection in the chisel blades of the planer will be reflected in the surface of the wood. Long raised lines, no wider than a fraction of a 16th of an inch will show up on the surface of the wood after coming out of the planer. They can be sanded out during the sanding process, and I often have to do so, but spending the time and money on running a sharp and debris free machine pay off in time lost down the road. For home projects however I don't mind a bit of sanding, as it gives off a wonderful aroma that does a great job of masking my terrible stink. Ask anyone who has worked with me, they will tell you.

That is it for milling the wood. the next set of steps involves biscuiting, gluing and clamping, if you are interested in seeing these steps check out the post titled "Glue is for Biscuits".

Wood is Good.