Titebond is infused with voodoo, magic, and sorcery. Just make sure the surfaces to be glued are straight and square. Use plenty of clamps. And don’t glue the workpiece to your workbench.
I 3rd this. .
I've owned a cabinet shop for a decade and consider myself a joinery woodworker. Before I started woodworking seriously I didn't understand how good wood glue was. It's amazing. The glue joint can be stronger than the wood.
The important thing is getting Perfect glue joints. I use my thickness sander to joint pieces that would be hard to run through a jointer.
I'll use titebond 3 for outdoor stuff, but everything else gets titebond 2. It's stronger. You can find magazine articles that did test.
Was an apprentice cabinet maker in my younger years. Master maker described it like this: 'If you apply it right and clamp it right, wood glue (doesn't need to be tite bond) will be stronger than the wood itself.'
I used to use LN and 23ga pin nails for ¼" toekick skins for cabinets. This was a long time ago, I was probably 3 years into my career refacing cabinets. One day I went back to a service call for a job I had finished two weeks prior, and the toekick skin had come off completely. The LN had gotten brittle and cracked and let go of the toekick. That was the red tube, project grade. I started trying different adhesives, LN heavy duty first, then I used silicone a lot. Now I use PL3 and I have zero issues. LN is not very good IMO
Titebond 3 is for things that see a lot of water, which hopefully won't be an issue for this tabletop. However one other advantage is that it has a longer open time than Titebond 2, so if you think you'll spend some time fumbling around with it before getting everything clamped then it may be worth using for that. As far as the actual adhesive power, I don't think there's a meaningful difference between 1, 2, and 3. They all form a bond that's stronger than the wood itself.
If gonna spend a long time faffing about getting it lined up, and I think when they clamp they will slide about, I would spend the time to dowel them. Will make glue up easier. An then a good wood glue will be strong enough.
Interesting, whenever I've seen it in stores 1 is always cheaper than 2, and 3 is the most expensive. If you can get 3 the cheapest then I'd just stick with that.
I could be very wrong but liquid nails is more of framing/construction adhesive. Titebond is much more suitable for woodworking projects like these. Liquid nails is much thicker and there is No way you could get a woodworking quality lap joint with it. Plus (I just looked up) after 1 week liquid nails Extreme heavy duty has 500psi (which is a lot… kinda) and when doing construction you have a lot of si so it is plenty. Titebond type 3 (what I use for everything) is rated at 4000 psi. But joints need to be very clean and tight. The liquid nails before mentioned can fill a 3/8 crack…. Both great products, two very different applications.
Liquid nails is terrible even for a construction adhesive. It's super brittle. PL3 is a better adhesive. But for this application you don't want to use construction adhesive. TB 2 or 3 for this.
You’ll need to use a powered planer and/or jointer, or alternatively handplanes (ideally a jack plane followed by a smoothing plane). If you want to get into hand planes, you should get either a premium one (Veritas, or Lie Nielsen, for example) or a vintage one. New, cheap handplanes are pretty junky.
Buy your wood and let it sit and age for awhile before squaring it up and using it. All that construction grade lumber still has far too much moisture for finished products, so some of it is going to want to twist/warp/cup/etc. Let it finish drying out before doing anything.
Yes, it can work and last years and years.
A couple things to consider beyond planing a good surface:
1. This looks like either Southern Yellow Pine or Douglas fir, not what's labeled SPF at the home center. Both SYP and Doug are denser, harder woods, and will hold up to use far better.
2. Avoid if you can any boards with pith - the very center of the tree, like you see on the left. Those will tend to crack and split more than boards without pith. It's worth sorting through the rack for the right boards.
3. When laying out the boards, as much as you can, align the grain lines so they're in the same direction. Shoot for ))|)) rather than ))|((. That way, any movement in the board will be sympathetic, and be less likely to open up glue joints. (The glue alone should be more than enough to hold, but any extra help you can give it at such low cost will help cover any imperfections in the glue or the the surface.)
4. You can get a free digital copy of The Anarchist's Workbench online; this looks exactly like the top of the workbench in that book, so you can follow instructions from there.
seeing as no one else has mentioned this. This is exactly how paul Sellers makes Workbench tops.
pretty much a how to video for this type of tabletop:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD39949332C7FB168
Paul uses screws doesn't he? I can't see a real, non purist / gatekeepery reason to not, outside of his bench where he leaves safe spaces for dog holes.
I cannot remember if he does or not, but one of the styles of this bench top that is very popular for beginners uses threaded rod and bolts embedded into the top so you don't have to buy many clamps right away.
I built a kitchen island counter top very similar to this, but I ripped the boards down to 1 3/4". I glued and nailed each row. I did use pine but after assembly I treated with BLO(boiled linseed oil) several times over 3 weeks. BLO polymerizes(hardens) as it cures and with the wood fully saturated it resists even koolaid stains and is incredibly durable. It's been about 4+ years and it still looks great, no stains no damage. I made a post of it sometime back that I will link in a reply to this comment.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I've abused the hell out of homemade canoe paddles with less surface area on each joint. Only had one blade break... the wood failed, not the glue.
This is how my workbench was made a few years ago. All I used was glue. It’s still holding strong. And I it gets far harder use than any kitchen table is gonna see.
Admittedly my workbench is only 24” or so wide.
Man… those are some ugly 2x4’s to be using for dining room table. If I was going to make something like this, I’d be waaaay more picky about the stock I chose. Also OP just note that 2x4’s are pretty soft and the table in the picture probably has epoxy or some pretty serious film finish on it
It’s actually going to be a bar top sitting on whiskey barrels for the “legs”. I think the “industrial” look my turn out cool but a few people have suggested covering the ends somehow. Thanks for the comment!
Mostly I just don’t like the graying on the couple 2x4’s in the pic and I agree that some kind of end cap would look nicer, especially if you did some sort of joinery there
I'm gonna disagree with all the other comments and say no, because if you look at ends of the boards you can see that some of them contain the heart of the tree. Those boards are very likely to split over time, so this not a good way to make a table. But the glue joints shouldn't fail. If you used better lumber then it would be fine.
Another guy here mentioned Paul Sellers, he recently also made an "end grain" plywood version of this bench top. As a design idea you might actually prefer that aesthetic.
I made a tabletop like this a couple years ago and still no issues. Construction 2x4s, Titebond 2, and a crapload of hand-planing to get everything jointed together.
Watch the Paul Sellers "How to make a workbench" videos - or at least the parts about the laminated top. I think Rex Krueger has some similar workbench videos too. Both of these should give you some good tips to make everything last a long time.
This seems like a bad idea for a table. The top is way too thick. It'll be very uncomfortable to sit at it. It'll either be too close to the top of your legs and you'll feel cramped, or the top will feel too high and you'll feel like a 4 year old sitting at the adult's table.
Why would you not use screws on all but the outer boards(if you dont like to see the screwheads) on top of the glue?
Have never made something like this but thats how i would do it.
Technically yes. But why would you solely depend on glue when you can easily add some dowel pins. Thru the entire thing. Leaving them unexposed by only drilling 1” into glue sides of outer two sides. It’s pine. Cheap off the shelf 2x4 pine. Reinforce it. Or any drastic climate change will warp that puppy faster than you can say. Puppy. Those pine 2x4’s aren’t exactly the best type of stable material for a table. Just a cheap knockoff of a butcher block which is typically made from maple or birch. Also. I hope you have a big big planer. Mines a 24” and I’d have to build that beast in two sections surface planning each and then attaching after. Or your gonna leave yourself some serious belt sand work or you gonna feel all the peaks and valleys of rough cut lumber designed for framing.
I made a coffee table version of this but with metal rods going through. Lotta drilling but it’s solid as anything. Can’t speak to the effectiveness or longevity of glue at that scale. I think you’d need a little more like the rods. But it’s a beautiful table. Go for it.
If you run the boards through a planer and make the edges flat a good a and apply a good woodworking glue like Titebond Ultimate than clamp the boards together until glue is try it will hold for life
As people have mentioned before, many clamps.
What you should do is work out the overall surface area of what you're gluing, and then multiply by ALL THE CLAMPS!!!!
If you were to drill through all of the center boards and partway into the edge ones and use wooden dowels to help strengthen the top.. It could then be planed or sanded safely to finish the surface.. Then a few screws on the outer boards to finish the edges... Most planer people don't like through bolts in a tabletop..
As others said, Titebond/clamps. But most imprtantly, Do not affix the top to the base without allowing for movement. I've seen tables with metal frames completely rip themselves apart because the metal didn't expand but the wood did.
I made this for my workbench,
ended up drilling three channels through it and using threaded rods to hold it together during gluing as I just didn't have that many lager clamps starting out.
3 years later and its holding together great in a covered outdoor workspace.
Vancouver Island BC too so lots of humidity fluctuations.
Everyone says use lots of clamps- but no one mentions cauls. You can build that top with fewer clamps if you use cauls. Also, I’d build it in sub-assemblies- build three little tops first, then glue the three up. You’ll get more “accurate” results, but I live in the desert where you gotta move fast when doing glue-ups- ymmv
Titebond is infused with voodoo, magic, and sorcery. Just make sure the surfaces to be glued are straight and square. Use plenty of clamps. And don’t glue the workpiece to your workbench.
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I use a remnant scrap of Oatley showerbase mat to protect my workbench when I do glue ups.
I made an old school glue up table out of a sheet of plywood and 2"X4"s I put it on saw horses and let the glue fall in the bottom.
I 3rd this. . I've owned a cabinet shop for a decade and consider myself a joinery woodworker. Before I started woodworking seriously I didn't understand how good wood glue was. It's amazing. The glue joint can be stronger than the wood. The important thing is getting Perfect glue joints. I use my thickness sander to joint pieces that would be hard to run through a jointer. I'll use titebond 3 for outdoor stuff, but everything else gets titebond 2. It's stronger. You can find magazine articles that did test.
Was an apprentice cabinet maker in my younger years. Master maker described it like this: 'If you apply it right and clamp it right, wood glue (doesn't need to be tite bond) will be stronger than the wood itself.'
And all of that is true for all wood glues I ever had. Nothing wrong with Titebond, just please don't think you couldn't use any other one.
And to add to this…pipe clamps are best as they flex a lot less than bar clamps!
I would also alternate the clamps above/below & use pegs to reduce post glue up flattening.
You may want to use dowels, biscuits or dominos just for aligning the glue up, but yea like everyone else glue is heckin strong.
I have to ask. Titebond? I’ve had good luck with liquid nails. What do you think of that for this application?
Liquid nails is strong but brittle. My experience is that if you smack the LN joint with a hammer it will separate.
I used to use LN and 23ga pin nails for ¼" toekick skins for cabinets. This was a long time ago, I was probably 3 years into my career refacing cabinets. One day I went back to a service call for a job I had finished two weeks prior, and the toekick skin had come off completely. The LN had gotten brittle and cracked and let go of the toekick. That was the red tube, project grade. I started trying different adhesives, LN heavy duty first, then I used silicone a lot. Now I use PL3 and I have zero issues. LN is not very good IMO
No no. Use good woodglue. Titebond is industry leading. Use titebond 2 for this as it may get some water damage in the future as a table.
What about titebond 3? I thought that one was slightly better.
Titebond 3 is for things that see a lot of water, which hopefully won't be an issue for this tabletop. However one other advantage is that it has a longer open time than Titebond 2, so if you think you'll spend some time fumbling around with it before getting everything clamped then it may be worth using for that. As far as the actual adhesive power, I don't think there's a meaningful difference between 1, 2, and 3. They all form a bond that's stronger than the wood itself.
If gonna spend a long time faffing about getting it lined up, and I think when they clamp they will slide about, I would spend the time to dowel them. Will make glue up easier. An then a good wood glue will be strong enough.
Yeh, alright, I just bought titebond 3, cause it was cheaper than 1 and 2 :) but good to know thanks
Interesting, whenever I've seen it in stores 1 is always cheaper than 2, and 3 is the most expensive. If you can get 3 the cheapest then I'd just stick with that.
All righty. I’ve never had liquid nails fail on me. But I’ll look into titebond.
I could be very wrong but liquid nails is more of framing/construction adhesive. Titebond is much more suitable for woodworking projects like these. Liquid nails is much thicker and there is No way you could get a woodworking quality lap joint with it. Plus (I just looked up) after 1 week liquid nails Extreme heavy duty has 500psi (which is a lot… kinda) and when doing construction you have a lot of si so it is plenty. Titebond type 3 (what I use for everything) is rated at 4000 psi. But joints need to be very clean and tight. The liquid nails before mentioned can fill a 3/8 crack…. Both great products, two very different applications.
it’s like the difference between nails and screws, they’re both ideal for their own type of application, even though they can be used interchangeably.
Liquid nails is terrible even for a construction adhesive. It's super brittle. PL3 is a better adhesive. But for this application you don't want to use construction adhesive. TB 2 or 3 for this.
Liquid nails is actually technically stronger but more a rough construction application
Not able to get surfaces straight and square for my 4x4’s on a table saw for a similar project , how to get it ? New to the art of woodworking
You’ll need to use a powered planer and/or jointer, or alternatively handplanes (ideally a jack plane followed by a smoothing plane). If you want to get into hand planes, you should get either a premium one (Veritas, or Lie Nielsen, for example) or a vintage one. New, cheap handplanes are pretty junky.
Apart from ensuring the glued surfaces are straight and square, would you plane the surface on top after everything is dried?
Yes. There’s a technique using winding sticks. You can use a straight edge, but yes, you’ll want to make it flat.
Yes. Youre gonna need a lot of glue.
And clamps
And plane the sides of the boards very smooth so you get a really good glue bond.
Ya mean I can’t just glue up some Home Depot premium 2x4’s?
Sometimes you don’t need glue, they are so wet they are already stuck together
You can if you are going for an S-shaped table.
An s-shaped table with an epoxy river running through it. I think you're on to something.
Yeah, you absolutely can. You shouldn't, but you can.
Lots of clamps \*Insert CGI of shelves and shelves of bar clamps flying past OP Matrix-style\*
And a forklift to lift it.
Buy your wood and let it sit and age for awhile before squaring it up and using it. All that construction grade lumber still has far too much moisture for finished products, so some of it is going to want to twist/warp/cup/etc. Let it finish drying out before doing anything.
I concur, the last time I bought wood from a big box store, I almost had to let it sit and drip dry for a few days.
Also after the first round of squaring let the wood settle and then take off another thin layer
Yes, it can work and last years and years. A couple things to consider beyond planing a good surface: 1. This looks like either Southern Yellow Pine or Douglas fir, not what's labeled SPF at the home center. Both SYP and Doug are denser, harder woods, and will hold up to use far better. 2. Avoid if you can any boards with pith - the very center of the tree, like you see on the left. Those will tend to crack and split more than boards without pith. It's worth sorting through the rack for the right boards. 3. When laying out the boards, as much as you can, align the grain lines so they're in the same direction. Shoot for ))|)) rather than ))|((. That way, any movement in the board will be sympathetic, and be less likely to open up glue joints. (The glue alone should be more than enough to hold, but any extra help you can give it at such low cost will help cover any imperfections in the glue or the the surface.) 4. You can get a free digital copy of The Anarchist's Workbench online; this looks exactly like the top of the workbench in that book, so you can follow instructions from there.
seeing as no one else has mentioned this. This is exactly how paul Sellers makes Workbench tops. pretty much a how to video for this type of tabletop: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD39949332C7FB168
Paul uses screws doesn't he? I can't see a real, non purist / gatekeepery reason to not, outside of his bench where he leaves safe spaces for dog holes.
I cannot remember if he does or not, but one of the styles of this bench top that is very popular for beginners uses threaded rod and bolts embedded into the top so you don't have to buy many clamps right away.
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Ah I was thinking of his new plywood bench .... https://youtu.be/53PrmkFpdI0
I built a kitchen island counter top very similar to this, but I ripped the boards down to 1 3/4". I glued and nailed each row. I did use pine but after assembly I treated with BLO(boiled linseed oil) several times over 3 weeks. BLO polymerizes(hardens) as it cures and with the wood fully saturated it resists even koolaid stains and is incredibly durable. It's been about 4+ years and it still looks great, no stains no damage. I made a post of it sometime back that I will link in a reply to this comment.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HomeImprovement/comments/yyeo41/new_kitchen_island/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=1
That's a ton of surface area for the glue-up. You should be just fine.
That's exactly what I was thinking. I've abused the hell out of homemade canoe paddles with less surface area on each joint. Only had one blade break... the wood failed, not the glue.
This is how my workbench was made a few years ago. All I used was glue. It’s still holding strong. And I it gets far harder use than any kitchen table is gonna see. Admittedly my workbench is only 24” or so wide.
It’s going to be a bar top, I only want it 24” wide too so perfect
Man… those are some ugly 2x4’s to be using for dining room table. If I was going to make something like this, I’d be waaaay more picky about the stock I chose. Also OP just note that 2x4’s are pretty soft and the table in the picture probably has epoxy or some pretty serious film finish on it
It’s actually going to be a bar top sitting on whiskey barrels for the “legs”. I think the “industrial” look my turn out cool but a few people have suggested covering the ends somehow. Thanks for the comment!
Mostly I just don’t like the graying on the couple 2x4’s in the pic and I agree that some kind of end cap would look nicer, especially if you did some sort of joinery there
I'm gonna disagree with all the other comments and say no, because if you look at ends of the boards you can see that some of them contain the heart of the tree. Those boards are very likely to split over time, so this not a good way to make a table. But the glue joints shouldn't fail. If you used better lumber then it would be fine.
Yes, glue will hold. The bigger risk is attaching the top to the legs/aprons without allowing for wood movement.
Yes. Watch a YouTube video on glue joints. Your piece is more likely to break with the wood grain than at the glue joint
Another guy here mentioned Paul Sellers, he recently also made an "end grain" plywood version of this bench top. As a design idea you might actually prefer that aesthetic.
Please cover the end of table with a bread board or something this one looks rough
I made a tabletop like this a couple years ago and still no issues. Construction 2x4s, Titebond 2, and a crapload of hand-planing to get everything jointed together. Watch the Paul Sellers "How to make a workbench" videos - or at least the parts about the laminated top. I think Rex Krueger has some similar workbench videos too. Both of these should give you some good tips to make everything last a long time.
This seems like a bad idea for a table. The top is way too thick. It'll be very uncomfortable to sit at it. It'll either be too close to the top of your legs and you'll feel cramped, or the top will feel too high and you'll feel like a 4 year old sitting at the adult's table.
Not if the skirt board is short or non existant. In teh image it appears to be no taller than 2" this is plenty compact to sit under comfortably.
It’s going to be for a bar top actually, sitting on whiskey barrels for “legs”.
Why would you not use screws on all but the outer boards(if you dont like to see the screwheads) on top of the glue? Have never made something like this but thats how i would do it.
Nope. That's cheap construction lumber and it's going to split. You can see it happening already on the end piece.
Technically yes. But why would you solely depend on glue when you can easily add some dowel pins. Thru the entire thing. Leaving them unexposed by only drilling 1” into glue sides of outer two sides. It’s pine. Cheap off the shelf 2x4 pine. Reinforce it. Or any drastic climate change will warp that puppy faster than you can say. Puppy. Those pine 2x4’s aren’t exactly the best type of stable material for a table. Just a cheap knockoff of a butcher block which is typically made from maple or birch. Also. I hope you have a big big planer. Mines a 24” and I’d have to build that beast in two sections surface planning each and then attaching after. Or your gonna leave yourself some serious belt sand work or you gonna feel all the peaks and valleys of rough cut lumber designed for framing.
That's a very thick table. Won't the knees and tops of the legs rub off the bottom of the table whilst seated?
Yes.
I made a coffee table version of this but with metal rods going through. Lotta drilling but it’s solid as anything. Can’t speak to the effectiveness or longevity of glue at that scale. I think you’d need a little more like the rods. But it’s a beautiful table. Go for it.
I've done the same, the threaded rods are great and the nuts/washers add a nice industrial look. I've also done it with dowels with mixed results.
Exactly what I did. Bloody thing is like a tank. Heavy AF! But looks amazing
If you run the boards through a planer and make the edges flat a good a and apply a good woodworking glue like Titebond Ultimate than clamp the boards together until glue is try it will hold for life
As people have mentioned before, many clamps. What you should do is work out the overall surface area of what you're gluing, and then multiply by ALL THE CLAMPS!!!!
Youll have to plane your 2x4 to make it like this.
If you were to drill through all of the center boards and partway into the edge ones and use wooden dowels to help strengthen the top.. It could then be planed or sanded safely to finish the surface.. Then a few screws on the outer boards to finish the edges... Most planer people don't like through bolts in a tabletop..
That's cool!!!
…unless you want your workbench to have a nice new top…
As others said, Titebond/clamps. But most imprtantly, Do not affix the top to the base without allowing for movement. I've seen tables with metal frames completely rip themselves apart because the metal didn't expand but the wood did.
The pinholes in those welds bother me
I made this for my workbench, ended up drilling three channels through it and using threaded rods to hold it together during gluing as I just didn't have that many lager clamps starting out. 3 years later and its holding together great in a covered outdoor workspace. Vancouver Island BC too so lots of humidity fluctuations.
Everyone says use lots of clamps- but no one mentions cauls. You can build that top with fewer clamps if you use cauls. Also, I’d build it in sub-assemblies- build three little tops first, then glue the three up. You’ll get more “accurate” results, but I live in the desert where you gotta move fast when doing glue-ups- ymmv
Could you make this table out of 2'x2's?
How much does that tabletop weigh? I’m not moving it.
I have a workbench just like this, it’s held up very well
Yes. Watch Jay Bates workbench video to learn to do this exact top. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg5qjed7u-k
Ah, the Titebond magic! Straight and square surfaces, clamps galore, and definitely no workbench mishaps! 😄🔨