I’m building a 5’6 fish out of pine and chamber the board, So i’m wondering how I should glue the pine together, after i “chambered” it.Should I use a brush to brush on the glue evenly, or put dots all over? I plan on clamping atleast for 24hours.
ps. will post pics and everythring after i am done.
I’d use a roller to apply the glue. Make sure that it is applied evenly and to both surfaces. Don’t go too heavy, just enough so that when clamping pressure is applied, you get a little seep out of the glue. You want to see little beads, not blobs that puddle all over the floor.
Cool thanks. Do I apply glue to both pieces of pine? or just one?
And i was thinking instead of using chambers… I could take a hole saw and drill as many holes as possible while still keeping the board strong enough.
Apply to both surfaces evenly. I personally haven’t seen any differences with how it’s applied as long as it’s even.
Ensure both surfaces are properly clean! You wouldn’t believe how many people miss out on that bit.
And don’t overclamp (or underclamp).
Hey Apeek
It depends on what glue you are using. If it’s PVC/wood glue, cover both pieces completely wait 5 mins then press together until the little beads of glue come out.
Be careful that the pieces stay straight and true with each other, maybe set up a rocker table to help.
One piece 1/16" out will make you cry alot…
Agree with Hicksy. It can be very frustating. Which is the other reason why you should not use too much glue: pieces of wood will tend to slip one against the other the more. What I do is put some pegs (or pins, orwhatever you call that: small, round, fluted pieces of wood) between the lumbers before chambering/glueing. That way, they won’t slip against each other.
In this photo, the holes for the “pegs” have just been drilled. (That’s a red cedar piece of lumber that was chambered later).
as one mynah bird to all the rest of the flock of birds
in confrence over the latest ‘‘road kill’’
1.after chambering and before glueing,
would it be propper to seal the insides of the chambers to
protect from water damage during an eventual breach.
should they be interlinked to allow for drain feature?
instalation of pvc tubing between chambers ,a breach
of wood builders code…
…ambrose…
I plan on using titebond II wood glue, which says to wait 5 minutes like you said. Do I clamp one board at a time together or what? I was thinking of glueing wait 5 minutes then clamp those 2 boards together for half and hour then adding another board.And do that until I am done. Thanks for the help guys!
Just chiming in…
Titebond II is Good Stuff, my wood glue of choice. You can clamp lots of sticks together, like butcher block stuff, but you want to do it all at once, not ‘clamp two, wait 5, unclamp and add another…’ that’ll give you a very untrustworthy glue joint as it all comes and goes and the glue gets squoze out of the glue joint repeatedly.
Don’t be afraid to use a lot of glue. When you clamp it up, the excess will squeeze out. Far better to waste a little glue than to use too little, y’know? I like to put on a fat bead of the stuff, brush it around to make sure it’s everywhere I want it and then put it all together. Again, glue is cheap, redoing the whole thing is expensive.
Dry-fit all your pieces first. Do a ‘dry run’ of gluing it all up, for practice. Doing a little last-minute fitting when the glue is going off is a formula for problems. Likewise having to shift clamps around, etc. Have your clamping positions and strategy worked out first.
The Titebond is water-cleanup, such that you can swipe off the excess with a damp ( not soaking wet) rag and see if you need a little more clamping force. But go as gentle as you can - while pine is an ‘easy’ wood, it’s usually fairly dry and too much clamp pressure combined with the natural tendancy of the pine to suck up moisture will give you starved glue joints.
hope that’s of use
doc…
Listen to doc!
We are of one mind.
Better to oversize your wood by 1/16-2/16 of an inch and have to sand/grind down.
Than to weaken your glue-ups by doing and undoing clamps!
Doc - what do you think of Titebond 3? I am a long-time Titebond and then Titebond 2 user and have heard good things about 3.
Hi Doug,
Agreed on all points. The thing I like about the biscuit joiners is how they help with aligning the pieces, so they don’t slip up or down on ya when clamping up with some pressure. Though the alignment isn’t perfect, I haven’t done a glue-up with biscuits yet that didn’t need a little touching up with at least a sander. But I have never been any good with the dowelling jigs, so it’s an improvement.
You know, I have been curious about the Titebond III myself - it seems like it’d be the cookies for a lot of things that I had been using, say, the Weldwood powder glue for. Thicker ( so it won’t drool out of less than ideal joints and glue-starve 'em ) and really-for-true waterproof rather than water-resistant. But I have about a half gallon of the Titebond II still to go through…
The step up from those is the two part Resourcinal glue which is the only stuff reccommended for underwater use and ‘structural’ use… and in all honesty I have never had any problems with using the Weldwood powder stuff for under-waterline boat work.
Hmm- I may have to bite the bullet and try some of the III, got a little dovetailed cabinet to put together for the kitchen this week… hell, why not.
Oh, and apeek - couple clarifications. The longest time you can keep the joint open is five minutes with the Titebond II. Best to have it only a few seconds.
Also, you want clamps across the top and the bottom, as the beggars tend to bow a little and other problems if you have 'em all along, say, the bottom. Best to alternate the clamps as shown;
The bar clamps ( as represented, badly, above) are nice enough, but for really doing the job on thick glue-ups like this, nothing touches the big ol’ Jorgensen I-Beam clamps . Pad 'em with some scrap strips, they have enough oomph to crush oak, let alone pine. Forget about the ‘quickie’ clamps for anything harder than balsa, I don’t really think they have enough power to pull together less than perfect joints… and who doesn’t make less than perfect joints…in wood, anyways…
hope that’s of use…
doc…
What I like to do when gluing up wider panels is to glue two, or three boards up at a time, and then glue up the group the next day. I have luck keeping things flatter w/ less creep. If I glue up the whole group of boards in wide panels at once, I will use braces on top and bottom of the panel and clamp the braces w/ big C clamps so things stay flat.
Right, I do something similar with the big I-Beam clamps, using the bars themselves to keep things flat. Setting the clamps so they lie on the wood before taking up on the clamp screws seems to work very well for me. It’s a brute-force approach, but it works. Those heavy bars won’t move.
One thing- the iron in the I-Beam bars can react with some glues, blackening the glue and the wood nearby. Not a bad idea to put down something for a barrier if that’s a worry. Acidic woods like oak are the worst, softwoods, especially pitchy softwoods are generally not a problem.
doc…
Thanks for all the help btw. I’m using a smaller version of the i beam clamps, and one pipe Clamp. But how I think I will keep the boards straight is to clamp then, drill holes for the dowels. Put glue on boards and dowels then clamp back together. And it should be straight! Tomorrow I am cutting the rocker out of the boards…I live in florida(gulf coast) So primarily mushy cold front waves and Hurricane swells, so up head High. I want this thing to catch waves real nice and be fast as hell.
So how thick should i have my board? 3"? 2.75" Its 5’6 and 22.75" at its widest spot. I was thinking of keeping the board flat in the middle and a .25" or .5" tail rocker. And a 3" nose rocker.
Hey Doc,
Something I always did was to clamp soem (wax paper wrapped) 2x4 above and below the timbers and then clamp them togethor form the side with some long bar clamps. Depending on the length of what you are joining you can do a whole series of these. Always gave me good results.
Yeah, I always steered away from Weldwood, coz I am lazy with mixing things I don’t have to 
I’ve used Resourcinal before with good results - except for the purple glueline.
If you try TB3 let me know what you think please!
LOL! Just read your top/bottom clamp thing Not too different to what I mentioned above.
And yeah, for serious joins the quicky clamps are crap, IME.
Not a bad idea eastern. I have just found that, with a little practice, I can glue them all up in one hit quite neatly.
Hi Apeek
Lets see -
The pipe clamps are nice and rigid, they will do you well. If you can borrow a dowelling jig, it’ll help a lot, as will a biscuit or plate joiner if you can find one. If this is your first shot at it, let me suggest that you dowel, plane, chamber, then glue… it’s maybe the easiest and safest way to go about it. 'cos your dowels and your chambers may kinda conflict, you know?
5’6" x about 23" x ? With (what I assume is local) pine? Okay…whoa. Unless you’re talking about a kneeboard…or unless you weigh in at around 100 lbs or less, you are gonna have some problems with float. Your typical chambered balsa is longer than that, and balsa runs about half to 1/3 the density of kiln-dried white pine. Southern pine species are more resiny and heavier. I think you may want to resize, up…maybe to 7 and change and around the same width.
Doug, I’ll keep you posted on Adventures with Titebond III- might do a similar joint out of scarp to see how they compare…
doc…
Doc- I was thinking that the chambering will take a significant amount of weight off. How much do you think this board will have to weigh to be able to float proberly? But dammit if it is too heavy to use as a stand up board what else could I turn this thing into.( I already cut the shape of the board out)
Here’s a glue related followup for Doc, Doug, or whoever…
What about using a clear epoxy for the glueup? I went to the resinresearch site and they indicated that their 2020 epoxy is good for bonding structural parts. I’ve got no experience with anyting but elmers and gorilla glue (pu expandable stuff) on wood, and have been reading a bunch to catch up. Resourcinal glue sound great from the description, but purple joints on a wood board?
Thanks.
Pat
I dunno about a clear epoxy. I haven’t used it on anything (join) that’s going to be exposed directly to water.
Probably if you are going to seal the whole board afterwards it’ll be OK. Most epoxies provide a bond stronger than the timber they are used against.
But I don’t know for sure (Doc?)