Est. 1998 — 27 years of woodworking knowledge
Panels experience destructive duress
Chuck Nickerson
when something or someone falls against them, or when movers make a mistake, or etc.
Touching up scuffed wood is work enough for me; I don't also need to mechanically repair the panel.
I have repaired panels on other peoples' work and it's just not fun.
Examine antiques
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
"that'll never be under destructive duress,"
Every time the panel experiences a moisture or temperature gradient it is put under stress. You won' t have to look at many antiques before you find split panels.
This whole discussion is silly. It is trivial to prepare a panel with optimum joint strength. Why strive for anything less, or worse potentially encourage those with less experience to do so? And yes, step 2 is proper machining. Step 1 using lumber with proper moisture content.
Re: Proper gluing is not hard-3 rules
Joe in a Cleveland suburb
I recently glue up these 4 5/8" thick panels for a bookcase.
Basically using the 3 steps.
I applied small beads on the mating surfaces.
Smeared the glue with my finger.
Laid them on the clamps.
Slid them back and forth a bit to further spread the glue.
Laid the top clamps down (so there are alternating top/bottom clamps).
Then started tightening the clamps from the center out ensuring the panels were flat to each other.
I tightened the clamps pretty much as tight as I could and had very small beads of squeeze out.
Once dried, I removed the small beads with a scraper.
Very little effort or clean up and the panels all matched well.
I made the panels long on purpose. After the glue dried, I cut them to proper length. I took the cutoffs and tried to break each one. The wood broke but not the glue line.
Panels
Break 1
Break 2
Suggestion
Bill Tindall, E.Tn.
skip step two and go directly to using the mating surfaces rubbed together to spread glue beads. Spreading does not have to be perfect. I strive for 80% +/-. The slow tightening step will flow glue from where it is thick to where it is not. That thick track of glue in the center of the joint has to flow past any deficient areas to squeeze out. Filling in the deficiencies is why a bit of squeeze-out is desirable to see.