It's still alive.....

Sunday night after dinner I went down to the shop to check on my glue up. It was very tempting to take it out of the clamps then to play with it but I resisted. I had glued it up with yellow glue and I wanted it to set up for a minimum of 24 hours. I contented myself with planing the right side and the two shelves. If all went well with the glue up, the plan was to glue up the shelves and sides today.

the moment of truth

I thought of this today - what if this comes out of the clamps as toast? I would have started over by making new sides. The shelves I would have squared off the tenons I had on them now and than reused them. I think trying to make another side to match the survivor would be too much trouble.

The top is flush still and I couldn't do the bottom because I had sawn the cutout there already.  I can't feel any difference on the glue line and the dadoes all line up ok. There weren't any glue drips etc in the mortises so the moment has arrived.

show side

It is laying flat on the bench and it isn't rocking. It isn't bowed or cupped in any direction and more importantly, the glue line is almost invisible. The split went top to bottom right on a grain line. I scraped the glue off with a paint scraper on both sides first.

without the glue beads you would never know I had glued this back together

both still fit

They dropped right into place with a few gentle taps of a mallet. I didn't have to trim the shelves or the side and they are still self supporting. The drawer runner is bit looser than I remember it. I may make a another one because I have to get some short #8 brass RH screws to screw them in place. I'll check it again after the carcass is glued up.

clean up

I cleaned up both sides with planes and I scraped the inside with a card scraper. Thanks for that heads up on that to Stefan. I didn't go nutso on the outside because I can get the last 10% after the glue up is done. I can not see the glue line. There are two spots with small divots but you wouldn't know it was from the side splitting in half. Where they are, books will hide them.

the show side

Cleaned up of the pencil lines, smudges, and glue smears. This cleaned up very nicely and the glue line is non existent. I am very happy that I could salvage this.

cheating

Maybe so but I want to glue this up and this is the quickest way to clean up this cutout.  I didn't want to use rasps and risk blowing out the edges. Sanding it by hand was out of the question.

my one gap

I did this by mistake. I should have trimmed the opposite end but when I flipped the board I didn't account for near side now being the far side with it flipped.

it's flush

I want this tenon to be proud of the side so I can plane the writing off. This was a dry clamp so I took it out of the clamps and made the dadoes on the right side a bit deeper.

glued and clamped

I had to put another set of clamps and a caul on in order to get pressure on the tenon. Once I did that the tenon popped out a strong 32nd.

the first glue up

I was going to leave this as it was to cook until tomorrow. I don't know why I did it but I checked the bottom shelf for square and it was OTL. It was out of square more the a quarter of an inch. I pulled all the clamps off and the the diagonals were off  3/4". So much for thinking the joints would square this up. (It did on the bookstand)

hide glue saved me

Glue ups and checks 2 thru 8 bazillion. About 15 minutes later, after shifting into hyper nutso mode, I got it square. I had to go back and forth about 6 times before I finally got the clamps tightened with the carcass staying square. If I had used yellow glue this would have been a rather large paper weight now. Although the hide glue had 'grabbed', I was still able to move the joints enough to square this up.

The weather continues to be screwy. Today was in the low 50's (F) and it's supposed to be like this till the weekend. I think I heard that  wednesday may top out in the low 60's(F).  This works in my favor for this glue up and that I am not paying to heat the house. I hope that we don't get slammed dunked like we did last year in Jan-Feb.

accidental woodworker

trivia corner
Which comedy team appeared in more movies than any other in US film history?
answer - the Three Stooges.

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