Praise the Pinch Dog

If you missed the first photo-journal about this monster table project, you can find it here When we left off, Lee and Krys were cutting dados in the edges of these giant triangles to receive splines for the circular glue up.

Plenty of glue and hefty splines helped to keep all of our radial seams strong, but getting a nice even clamp across the joint while the glue dried required some clamping ingenuity.

We started by glueing up pairs. Because geometry was on our side, we could flip two unglued wedges to the outside of our center joint to give us parallel clamping surfaces.  Here Matty strikes the self satisfied pose of his baller alter ego- MC Pinch Dawg.

We pounded in steel pinch dogs both along the glue seam–to squeeze the glued center wedges together, and along the clamping seam–to keep the outside wedges from sliding when the clamps were tightened. Not trusting the clamps, Matty squeezed tightly for the next two hours until the glue set.

After we glued up our four initial pairs, we add one more wedge to make the four quarters of our final circle. We use plenty of pinch dogs along the table’s bottom seam as their marks will never be seen.

On the top surface, we are able to slip some dogs in the pocketed out area which will be covered by the Lazy Susan. Bar clamps do the rest of the squeezing.

Next, we glue two quarters together to create the halves.  Things are starting to get pretty HEAVY–each half weighs around 250lbs at this point.  Don’t smile yet Thomas, you’ve forgotten the straps.

Bar clamps, pinch dogs, and ratchet straps get that seam tight.

Now for the whole enchilada. Isn’t this fun?!

Push, pull and pray.

That’s how you glue up a 500 Lbs, 80″ wide by 6″ thick circle.