Cutting Boards - Part 14

Today, I almost did not write an article again because I was transferring my OS to a bigger hard drive and it did not go exactly smoothly. However, I succeeded after all and I have a fully functional PC again. So today I will write shortly about gluing the boards.

This is my third jig for gluing; unfortunately, it is still not ideal. I haven't managed to solve the "wandering" problem where the glued pieces tend to shift while the glue sets. To fix them between two boards as shown in the picture does help a bit in one direction, but not completely. I tried to add a few grains of sand in the joints, a trick that works well for softer woods. But jatoba is so hard, that its effects were negligible. So far I am at a loss about what to do.

Because of the freezing weather, I took the gluing indoors so I do not need to heat up the workshop just for that. Gluing takes a lot of time because each stack needs to be at least ten minutes in the jig and subsequently at least an hour clamped together. And since I did not have enough large clamps and could not buy them easily, I had to use an old carpenter tool – the Spanish windlass.

I put the glued stack between two slightly overlapping boards, wound a few turns of twine around the ends, inserted a lever between the strands (in this case three popsicle sticks), and wound them together until they were tight. Depending on the type and amount of twine, one can achieve really big forces this way.

Next week I will write about flattening the boards again.