Tips for a Panel Glue Up
George VondriskaDescription
If you need wide, solid wood panels for your next project, you’re going to have to glue them up. Doing a good panel glue up isn’t hard, but there are specific steps you need to follow, and things you need to take care of, to make sure the panel glue up turns out well. A well composed panel can easily end up looking like one large piece of wood, with no seams at all.
What are we looking for?
There are a number of things to keep in mind as you work on gluing boards up to make a large panel. They include color match, grain pattern match, quality of the joints, amount of glue used, and more. You’ll learn about all of these things in this video.
Questions we’ll answer for you
There are some very common questions about panel glue up that we’ll take care of for you in this video. Should you use biscuits or dominoes or dowels in the joint? How do you know the joints are sound? How much glue should be used? How large should the glue up be compared to the final panel required for the project? What’s the best way to handle squeeze out? You’ll get answers to all of these questions.
Wanna know more?
This is a pretty comprehensive video, but WoodWorkers Guild of America has a great depth of information ready to help you out. If you want to go even more in depth, we’ve got it for you, and you can learn more on gluing up panels.
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12 Responses to “Tips for a Panel Glue Up”
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What are your clamps called in this panel glue up video? Where could we purchase some?
Excellent video! I've been using a router glue joint bit for joining 3/4" boards, thinking that it increases the surface area for gluing and thus results in a stronger bond. But when clamping the boards together, there's a tendency for the board joints to not be totally straight and level with bowing at the joints as well as the difficulty in surface alignment. From your video, all that should be totally unnecessary and if all that I need are straight edges and the same board thicknesses, that should make these glue-ups a lot easier, especially with the post-joining sanding/planing. Thank you.
I went through high school about 50 years ago. After an extended hiatus I’m getting back into wood working. My shop teacher taught us to put a single layer of newspaper in the glue joints. He claimed it made them stronger and reduced slipping and squeeze out. We used the original tight bond glue. I have not seen this technique used in recent web based instruction. Have you heard of this? What’s changed? Perhaps it was only used on face to face glue ups? Thanks.
What are those clamps called?
Wished you would have told us about the squeeze out on the under side of those 3 boards?
Great advice. I learned to do the "rubbery" glue when I taught beginner classes.
George, I’ve always thought using cauls was best practice on a flat panel glue-up, but haven’t seen you use them. Do you use only when necessary to tame a misalignment, or never at all?
I have been told to alternate "cup" of the grain of the boards. Is that not necessary?
I've been doing everything outlined here but your tips on the amount of glue was very helpful. If anything I tended to put too little glue on to minimize squeeze out, but having a visual reference will make it easier to judge how much is applied. Thanks. By the way George, you must be working out and/or dieting as you're looking pretty buff these days.
While I agree with, and use, your approach, I have also found that pocket screws work very well and I have used them without glue to join panels. Have you used this approach and, if so, what’s your opinion?