My Best Advice for Gluing Up Joints and Furniture
Stay calm, take advantage of how clamps apply pressure, and take a dry run
This is part four of a nine part deep dive into the steps outlined in a post about how I make boxes. Because the information is applicable to furniture generally, I have dropped the box-making context. Links to the previous posts are below.
The near-ubiquitous trope about gluing up joinery is that folks get super stressed about it. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do recall feeling unease when I was just beginning my journey as a furniture maker. I believe it any stress or unease we feel comes from a sense that we are not in complete control when gluing up a case, box, or whatever. That’s a reasonable way to feel.
As I gained experience, that unease subsided. Looking back, I see that over time I figured out how better to control the various steps of a glue-up. That sounds a bit fancy, but all I mean is that over time I acquired knowledge and technique that allows me to manage a glue up. Like every other part of furniture making, gluing parts together is a skill that you can learn and master.
Perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is the overriding goal of a glue-up: joining parts together to create furniture that is strong and withstands the stress of daily use throughout it’s (hopefully very long) life. Everything you do during a glue-up serves that goal, from spreading glue to knocking a joint together to tightening the clamps. Now, on to the advice.
Clamping pressure spreads out in a triangle
In order to clamp effectively and efficient you must understand how clamps apply pressure. In short: the pressure radiates outward from the clamp heads at about 45º angle. I absolutely do not want to get into a technical discussion of clamping pressure, but will note that the exact angle and how far the pressure extends depends on the strength of the clamp. A small, light-duty clamp might not quite reach that 45º spread, and the pressure won’t extend too far from the clamp head. A beefy clamp (think K-Body, pipe, and bar clamps) hits that 45º angle and pushing the pressure farther out.
