Friday 10 October 2014

Garden Gate Project - Part 11 - Glue up

The glue up is a multi stage procedure:

  • Top rail, mid rail and mullions sub assembly
  • Lower rail, stiles to the previous sub assembly making the carcase assembly
  • Vertical boards to gate carcase assembly
  • Diagonal supports.
The reason for approaching the glue up in this way is to stop panic when the glue is drying.
The mullions were generously coated with epoxy glue as were their corresponding mortises in the top and mid rails. They were inserted and the side stiles were attached without glue and everything squared up and clamped.


After leaving overnight to cure the stiles were removed and the first sub-assembly was complete.


The next evening and there was a little squeeze out to clean up. As a bench chisel will not now fit in I used a chisel plane.
Chisel plane - you never know when you'll need one.

Paring the glue with a bench chisel.

Then the panic sets in when you have to coat tenons with glue and poke glue into the mortise's. All the time you are aware of the glue setting up but with West Systems Epoxy you still have plenty of working time.
After all the tenons were inserted, the clamps added, the piece checked for squareness then the wedges are coated with glue and inserted. Insert them both in both tapping with a hammer.
In the meantime glue is dripping out from all orifices - don't worry about it you can clean it up tomorrow (or leave it in globular form on the floor!)
The important thing is that all the joints are fully coated adding to its longtime water resistance.

Clamps on and wedges inserted.
Wedges in

The next job after curing will be cutting off any excess and cleaning up the excessive squeeze-out. Then the boards and diagonal supports can be cut to length and glued in.






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