[JoshK]

Wondering if someone here knows how to laminate wood pieces together, or has a reference on how to do it?  Say for instance I want to laminate wood pieces together to make an amp platform, what materials do you use to glue them together (assuming they have been planed already)?

[Christof]

Josh
Josh,

Here is a system I use to make water safe cutting boards:

Let say you want it 3" thick and 12" x 12" with 3/4" x 3" x 12" pieces glued together.  Take all but 2 of the pieces and drill a 1/2" hole about 2" in from each end.  The holes shold be the same on all the pieces except the two you set aside.  Assemble the stack of pieces with one of the solid pieces on the outside.  You will later fill the 1/2" dia tunnel with epoxy and insert a piece of 3/8" thread-all.  Once the glue-up has dried throw a piece of thread-all inside the tunnels and fill the void with epoxy then epoxy on the last piece w/o holes to cap it off.  Not sure if this is making sense but essentially you epoxy everything together drill a 1/2" hole throught the entire widthe of the block and epoxy a rod in place.  The rod stabilizes everything and the block will never crack even if you drop it.  This might be overkill for amp stands but its a standard way of making butcher blocks.

C.

[JoshK]

Thanks!

Wasn't sure it was epoxy that was used but thought it might be.  Just looking to learn how.  I'll test it out on some scraps till I figure it out.

[bubba966]

Josh,

No need to use epoxy to glue up the lam. But if you're going to run a rod through the block like Christof is talking about, then you'd use epoxy on the rod, but use yellow wood glue for the wood-wood joints.

Regular yellow wood glue will (assuming it's all done properly) create a joint that's stonger than the wood. And I've done tests with eastern hard maple on glue lam joints using just wood glue. With a proper joint, the wood will break before the glue every time.

[shokunin]

Josh,

How do you want to glue the pieces together? The method Christof mentioned is for face-glueing boards together so that the edge grain is facing up like this (if you're looking at if from the front):

  Front of
  Amplifier
||||||||||||||

This is the most stable, but also the most time consuming as you'll have laminate a bunch of boards together and have to stay flat as you glue it up.  You can also joint/plane it flat after glueup if you have a hand plane or even a sander.

Or you could glue it up like plywood:

----------------
----------------
----------------

Laminating boards across their width and also gluing up multiple boards to get the right thinkness.   In some senses this might be easier, but harder to glue up to get proper clamping pressure in the middle of the boards.

If you're pieces are thick enough you could just glue them up side by side, but that would be more prone to warping, especially if your amp is throwing off a lot of heat.

I'd recommend Christof's method.

[Christof]

PVA (yellow glue) is fine for both applications.  The method I spoke of, which is overkill for this app., is for butcher blocks and cutting boards which are exposed to water and blunt abuse.  Bubba966 is right a good PVA joint will be stronger than the cellular structure of the wood itself.  The key word here is a "good" PVA joint.  Josh, if you are fighting to clamp and align many boards at once, make sure you use plenty of glue.  It should be dripping all over.  IME the #1 cause of joint failure is a starved glue joint.

c.

[beat]

I like to use titebond 2,
It is just a modified version of regular yellow wood glue that can outlast the regular if subjected to the elements. As stated earlier, grain orientation is of question but of no concern for glue choice. I would use a yellow glue of some sort. I suggest that in all confidence. When it comes to clamping, just clamp the heck out of it. The more the better. If you only have a couple, you can clamp-screw-reclamp-screw-reclamp etc.. until you have that sucker solid. If you arent going to be real picky about it or dont have clamps (and your stands are kinda small) you can use old bike inner tubes...score a few from a bike repair shop for free. You can get alot of pressure going with them belive it or not. I learned that technique when laminating curves.
Oh yeah, when you are gluing them up, no matter how you are laminating them, you want to look at the grain direction of the end grain. To prevent warping you orient them like this if you had seven boards \ / \ / \ / \ not like this ////\\\ or /////// Ya know? that way if the boards do decide to move and they probably will, they keep each other in balance and you still have a flat surface.

[JoshK]

Thanks guys!