I’ve been trying to get into making a few cutting boards/charcuterie boards and I’m struggling with the glue up. On my latest attempt, the darker contrasting wood portions didn’t line up. I can use it at home (without too much embarassment ) but I’d like to improve so I could start to give some as gifts.
Are parallel clamps a benefit?
Do you use clamping cauls?
I’ve been using wax paper for squeeze out - is there something better?
What food-safe glue do you use?
I also tried to use a chess board technique, where I glued 1.75" boards together and sliced them. Then I reversed each slice to vary the grain pattern. However I now realize this is extremely sensitive to alignment. (For instance, if I aligned the contrast stripe on one side, it didn’t align on the other.)
How do you glue up the “brick pattern” if the edges aren’t reasonably straight?
Thanks - as I look at these as an opportunity to do some cool inlays, I realized I need to work on my glue up skills.
Also I think it has a lot to do with tightening your clamps up evenly. And having enough to cover the size board you are trying to make. You don’t want too much space between them. And if you tighten too much on any one clamp at a time it can cause things to move around.
Cauls are for sissies! (I jest)
I have very good Bessey K Body parallel clamps that I use for this stuff.
Use titebond III, clamp firm but not super tight.
Then use a hammer - to thump any misaligned board to exactly level. It sounds crude, but once you get the hang of it you can quickly and easily get perfect alignment of the pieces. Work by feel - it’s easy to feel even a zillionth of a mm out of alignment.
You have to be careful of course - you don’t want to belt a board or two right through the glue up and collapse it all.
Turn it over find the high spots, and repeat. Use a flat scrap on the underside and a some for protection where you are going to hit and to spread the load. Just a bit of MDF is fine.
It can be messy, when it’s done nip up the clamps - I usually run a bit of masking tape on the clamps to protect them from spills, when it’s done I stand the whole thing vertically while it cures even if I’m doing a large benchtop, Wipe over with a damp cloth to get rid of most of the squeeze-out, but don’t worry about it too much, and clean off the rest after it’s all cured with a cabinet scraper.
By standing it vertically you get to clean your benchtop before the glue goes off.
Thanks all. I have some nice F clamps that I bought 20 years ago that I like, but the throat isn’t very far, so clamping from the side so I can align things isn’t very secure. I can adjust, but I feel like things shift a bit when I starting adding the additional clamps. I also just tried to glue in an inlay and didn’t have a single clamp that could reach it directly.
So I’ve identified that for something this size I probably need a couple of clamps with deeper throats and potentially a couple of parallel clamps for the initial alignment.
I 've used wax paper, but I like the idea of using plain masking tape (I usually buy the blue stuff for painting, but for this I could just get the old regular stuff to save a few $$.)
I also think I’ll make a few small rectangular pieces from some 6 - 9 mm MDF and seal them. Then I can put the tape on it and use one slightly smaller than my project so it would give me the 1/4" or so I need to properly align the clamps.
I did it with pretty long clamps but I also have to really, really big plates of plywood (like, 9cm thick) that I have never used because I only got them recently. Because I am also a very modest guy I bought a used book press to have an even force applied to those inlays. It is able to build more pressure than my cheap clamps, I hope it is enough.
The press looks like this and is roughly 83cm hight. As I said, modest guy. I justified it to myself because I am really doing quite a lot of inlays…
Thanks to you both. I had wondered about a press. I have really enjoyed making some cutting boards and charcuterie boards, but I just started by laser marking them. I want to really dive into the inlay work. I’ve noticed my LR3 likely has a cracked core, and the V bit wandered a bit on a couple of lines on my latest attempt. Previously I probably wouldn’t have noticed, but as I’ve tried to follow the videos and examined my results, now I’m starting to want more precision .
I’ve even consider making the “center” of the cutting board, so I could inlay into it and reach it with clamps. Then glue it up to the final width. This would allow me to reach it without needing the longer throat clamps. (It would also allow it to fit in a book press like that.)
This last weekend I also discovered that I designed an inlay with lines that are too narrow and the walnut I was using constantly tears out. Looks like I’d need to use epoxy if I want those thin lines.
) but I’d like to improve so I could start to give some as gifts.
