Laminating Little Wood into Big Slabs: Good Glue-Up, No Biscuits

When laminating multiple pieces of wood together to make a wide slab, you could use a biscuit joiner to align the pieces, but you'd earn the contempt of Samurai Carpenter. In this video, Jesse shows you how HE does it: tap, tap, tap.

Step by step glue-up process:

• Apply the glue to the edges of the boards.
• Line up the pieces and apply light clamping pressure.
• The individual pieces up or down to make them all flush along one edge
• Crank down the clamp at one end (the end you just flushed up)
• Repeat at the other end: flush the first two boards, flush the next, etc.
• If you need to adjust the tension if the clamp in the process, do so.
• Clamp down the second end.
• Now, add opposing bat clamps to apply force in the opposite direction; this will keep your workpiece flat.
• Use a straight edge to double-check the flatness and adjust the. Lamps as needed.

This works for long glue-ups, short glue-ups, and all kinds of glue-ups.

Extra glue-up tip:

If the boards still buckle a little bit—like if one of them has a wane in the end—then you can slide little shims between the bar and the board to push it all into position.