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...