Thread: A fast death

Thanks raav.
The mating surfaces of the wood pieces: are they smooth to begin with?
Have you got a method for keeping one piece in the glue up from moving
position with respect to the other pieces? How far apart are your clamps?

That's my puzzle = the glue-up looks great, clamps all snug, some glue squeeze-out.
Come back tomorrow and one piece has crawled 5mm out of alignment. To true that up,
the dang thing is now 10mm thinner than I really wanted.

Raav, thanks for the extra picts !

RV, You can try to rub the two glued pieces together before clamping. It will become harder and harder and will have less tendancy to slip (at least with my basic "white" (yellow for you, no ?) glue). Be careful to put your clamp as straight as you can and add clamps where you think it will move. I sometimes have 6 or 8 clamps on a glue up, in every direction.

Or take pieces of wood 10mm larger than you need !

I'm probably letting my ignorance show here, but as a 'whittler' I've never done much large stuff. Its almost always small enough to hold in my off hand, I rarely clamp or bolt work down. I've just never had the experience of gluing up work before cause everything I've done has been small enough to get out of a single block or, for larger stuff (rarely for me), I've gone out and found a stump or log that was big enough.

When I see the stuff you and others do, I can follow the carving processes fine, but you all seem to take the glue up as a 'given' but its a 'black hole' in my experience.

I think my main concern is how smooth and flat do the mating surfaces have to be. I either buy wood rough sawn, or cut it out of tree rounds with a chain saw. Even my band saw at 6 TPI does not leave a surface that I would have though would work with a glue up. Do I need to go out and get a thicknesser?

Do you cut your pattern outline before or after you glue up?

Great work Raav

The wood is always dressed. usually because I'm working with small 'boards' that are often referred to as hobbyist kits. These are off the shelf from the suppliers. Very smooth, regular and even. if the surfaces aren't smooth and flat - unwanted gaps will appear as you start carving into them where the wood doesn't meet. I wouldn't rush out to get a thicknesser - but I am able to get them dressed. Certainly couldn't do it with sanders though.


Jelutong I have to get dressed BUT i am keen to see what happens when the boards are rough sawn - the sutures would be interesting. Not to everyones liking I'm sure.
Use the glue sparingly and you may have to let the glue set a bit before adding more pieces (if they are prone to shifting). Just enough to let it hold. I find the cheaper clamps sometimes engender a certain pushing out of alignment. If it's really bad then you may try clamping the edges from the top/bottom as well. As Copeau says 'every direction' - though that's easier said than done.


As for leaving things overnight…I got to a point in the bigger carving that I didn't have that luxury and found half an hour was sufficient for Titebond 3 to get a decent hold (it would cure overnight - bless it). That was a Perth summer though.


I only have 2 large heavy duty F clamps - the rest (6 large, 4 small) are the Irwin quick release in varying sizes. I keep meaning to get more…but you know how it goes. As for the number of clamps used it comes down to the size if the project and usually where the wood isn't quite together. this may be all of the clamps you have (as often happens) or as few as 2. No rules, just depends on circumstances, but if you have the clamps you may as well use them.


As for the pattern outline - I generally start with ply templates (or cardboard for the hoodys) and rule lines along the length according to the thickness of the wood - this is to create the gaps though and may be overkill for you guys (in these pics the swimmer is 12mm poplar, the headphone guy is 25mm paulownia). You could sort of follow the sequence from there. Except perhaps the larger work - that's a quagmire that still haunts me. Not having a bandsaw, I often cut the profile with a jigsaw a I go which you can see in the 03 jpg.


If it's any consolation Whittling, that mess of wood was my first glue up and I had no idea what I was doing or what I was in for. My method hasn't really changed, hence I don't want to sound like I know the best way to do it. There are plenty of people reading this who may want to add to it or suggest different things.
Perhaps they'll chime in?????


Hope it helps.

(the pics didn't load in sequence)
glue 03.jpgglue 04.jpgglue01.jpgglue02.jpgIMG_5831.jpgIMG_5841.jpg

Hi Raav, Well you have inspired me to revisit a large lump of Jelutong I've had sitting in my shed for a while but my skill set won't let me attempt anything as adventurous as your skull carving. I must say that's a nice row of chisels you have there, I have about a quarter of that amount, what did you say your address was again?

RV & Whittling, I agree with all that has been said about gluing up by Raav & Copeau, I use Titebond 3 as well, I use a very thin coating of glue hold the pieces together for a couple of minutes, pull it apart and let the glue dry a little for another couple of minutes then carefully put back together and clamp it in my wood vice, wipe of any glue that has leaked out then clamp the excess hanging out the wood vice if you get my drift.
If it moves when I'm tightening up the vice I just loosen and adjust, as Raav says it is set pretty solid in a couple of hours but then I'm in Perth too. Hope this helps. The maximum I have clamped is 3 pieces at once.

That is awesome work
I'm inspired to have a go at carving

Get into 'tong Rob!
Just watch for it's habit of splitting sometimes.

Thank you RAAV. That has filled in a 'hole' in my knowledge. (My experience is still empty but the brain is confident enough to have a go... the idiot!)

I appreciate you taking the time to 'spell it out'. Being largely self-taught, one doesn't always learn things in sequence.

As for the Jelutong... I use a lot of it (small stuff) and reckon its every bit as good as Lime or Basswood.

Originally Posted by raav

There are plenty of people reading this who may want to add to it or suggest different things.
Perhaps they'll chime in?????

On the odd occasion that I glue up blocks I'll hammer 2 small copper nails into one surface (in an area that won't be carved into)
then cut off the heads with a sidecutter leaving a small copper spike (about 2mm) protruding from the surface...this stops the 2 pieces sliding around when glueing and clamping