Squeeze out or lack of.....

[BEN7002]

Hey all,

I did the first glue up last night on batch of xmas cutting boards.

My questions is, I didn't have much glue squeeze out. But the joint seems to be strong. I can, however, see a very faint black line in a few spots between the boards.

Now, I'm not worried about it falling apart, BUT, could small particals get down in this micro crack and go rancid, or will the Block oil seal that crack up. When I say crack, I'd say thinner than a piece of notebook paper.

[TDHofstetter]

Mmmmmm... I'd be tempted to give it a coat of (thinned) polyurethane, then sand that coat completely back off. The poly will fill your cracks well, but you don't want it on the surface. Depending upon which oil you use to finalize the cutting boards, it probably won't seal anything.

You could even just paint the thinned poly directly into the cracks themselves, saving yourself a bunch of sanding. You could use an artist's paintbrush for that.

You could, too, use shellac or store-bought sanding sealer. Nearly anything that hardens, and is still thinnable enough to be drawn down into the cracks.

-- Tim --


Things are bad...
Last night my fantasy girlfriend
Dumped me
For an imaginary guy...

:)

[skyphix]

I'd vote for thinned Shellac. Have a feeling it'd be safer on a cutting board than poly.

Maybe not though.

[BEN7002]

I'll be using watco butchers block oil. I'm thinking of running it through the planner once to see if the crack is actually all the way down the joint.

[TDHofstetter]

That, I think, should be fine for filling. Definitely make the first application with thinned oil, though - so it soaks in deep.

-- Tim --


Things are bad...
Last night my fantasy girlfriend
Dumped me
For an imaginary guy...

:)

[rrich]

Eric,
Everything that I've read says that once a modern finish has cured it is considered safe. Shellac is no safer than poly and the method suggested was only to fill the tiny opening in the joint. All of the surface poly would be sanded away with only the poly in the tiny opening remaining.

[DougB]

> I'm thinking of
>running it through the planner once to see if the crack is
>actually all the way down the joint.

That's what I was going to suggest...I know that if your boards are not exactly 90 degrees you will end up with a crack on one side, while the other looks perfect. DAMHIKT. But, sometimes a pass or 2 through the planer gets rid of the gap.

I learned the hard way that you really need to make sure your jointer fence is perfectly perpendicular before edge jointing for a panel glue up. My jointer has a stop bolt that is set for 90 so you should be able to always return the fence back to that perfect setting after tilting the fence. Somehow that stop bolt loosened up a bit without me knowing it. Dangit!

[cabinetman]

The line that you do see may not be a crack. If it is that thin it could be just a glue line possibly accentuated by different woods being next to each other. Good oiling for the surface prep may seal that condition.