Clamping - Help

[ForumMFG]

Hello All,

I am currently trying to make my first work bench.  The top is going to be made of 2" x 1 1/2" maple strips (i wanted it to be thicker but this is what I had laying around in the shop.)  The finished dimensions are going to be 36" x 84".

I am running into a issue while I do a dry test run.  I'm clamping it all up and for some reason I am still getting very very little gaps in between each piece of wood in some spots.  The wood is S4S, very straight and all the edges are in the condition they need to be in to do this type of glue up.  I am clamping the top to bottom in a way that I use 7 bar clamps equally spaced over 84".  I then clamp edge to edge 7 pipe clamps equally spaced over 84".  After I do this I have a extremely small gap between some pieces of wood.  It's driving me nuts.  One question I have is that when doing glue ups like this, can you expect this to happen and rely on glue to fill this very tiny void or do I need to use more clamps?

Thanks you.

-Dave

 

[MarkF]

Need lots of pressure (Tons/foot!) to get 36" of Maple to compress.  Try joining a 12" section and see if you can close it up with the clamps you have.  If still having issues try 6" sections or get more clamps.  By doing the smaller sections you can run them through a planer after assembly, then join the remaining sections 2 at a time until it's done.

 

[ForumMFG]

Mark,

What I was doing is just kinda what you said.  I was clamping them in 18" wide sections.  Then I planned to run them through the planner and then make the final clamp.  Maybe I need to do what you said and take it down to 12".  I'll try that.