Woodworking Workbench - Benchtop Glue-up

One batch of 2x4s that I purchased was in pristine shape and the other needed lots of work. I attempted to mix and match the two sets in order to get the best layout to create two benchtops of 7 pieces each.

It was like piecing together a puzzle where I wouldn’t know how well I had done until after the glue had dried. So after spending more time than I really should have to find the right combination of pieces that cancelled out each others bows and twists, I clamped them together for a dry fit. I had just enough large clamps to make this work.

I fretted about small gaps between pieces because I wasn’t sure whether the glue and clamps would work some kind of magic to make them disappear.

After I had the best combination ready for each benchtop, I began the glue-up. As always, the first one presents the steepest learning curve. I knew I had to work relatively quickly since I had 7 long pieces to prep and clamp up before the glue got too tacky. So I got everything ready - Glu-bot bottle, scrap wood to use as a spreader, paper towels and rolled up my sleeves. I also had the clamps exactly where I wanted them, ready to accept the pieces.

Here we go - start drizzling on the glue and spread it using the scrap wood spreader. Hmm…Not enough glue and the spreader was leaving too thin of a layer. Let’s add more glue - Squeeze the Glu-bot bottle harder, and use finger to spread the glue. Need even more glue - let’s just pour straight out of the 3.7 litre (1 gallon) jug. Oh no, Glue on hands, too much glue poured onto the pieces and now it’s dripping all over the saw horses, shop floor, assembly table and clamps. Tick tock, tick tock! Glue is getting tacky. In this melee, I didn’t take any pictures, so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

The second glue up was much more civilized. One big realization was that I had a fair bit more time than I thought before the glue set.

Used every clamp I could find to help with the glue up. This amount of force helped eliminate majority of the gaps caused by bows or twists.

Glue up completed and ready to be planed down flat.