As the rain had stopped me before gluing up on Day 1, my goal was to get a lamination finished.
Since my stock was still uneven, I went through each board with a straight-edge and jointed them with a No. 5. I hadn’t been very careful when I first smoothed the faces of the boards, a mistake I won’t make for the rest of the work. I should be able to surface and joint the rest of the boards in one step.
Finding the uneven spots with a rule.
Planing was made more difficult by the fact that I’d ran out of saw-horse space and was using the last couple inches for the boards. A few knocks on the knuckles didn’t motivate me to move the whole clamp assembly to the ground.
He’s back for day 2; it only takes a few whispers from a plane to get his attention.
I got the joints to where I was happy and started glue up. Titebond 1 grabs quickly, so the work went fast. I’d love a much slower setting PVA glue, any suggestions?
The clamps are an eclectic collection (try saying that five times fast), of aluminum/aluminium bar clamps from Harbor Freight, Rockler’s house-brand F-clamps, older Hargrave pipe-clamps and Hargrave sash/cabinet clamps. I doubt I paid over $10 for any one of these and considerably less for some. Don’t think you need to shell out $80 for a pair.
The slab will set overnight and then some. I’ll start the second slab tomorrow to give the first time to fully cure before flattening the top and bottom.
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