So today I got a little done, wasn’t a very busy day because of the glue-up.
TODAY’S ACTIVITIES INCLUDED :
Finished putting the dadoes in the flights.
The Glue-up
DADOES
I finally finished putting all the dadoes in the bottom sides of the flights. As I did previously I put a 1/2” dado stack into the table saw and raised it 1/4” high. Below is a picture of the finished flights, now that all joinery is cut so as that I glue in the sides and then its on to the glue up.
So all the flights are made all 9 of them.
THE GLUE-UP
The glue-up was a lot of fun trying to figure out how I was going to glue up 9 flights at the same time with only 13 clamps. The glue-up consisted of just attaching the two feet into the dadoes I just cut.
My solution was to use the jig that I had just made for the pipe clamps . I used a brace across the pipe clamps that way I could clamp 2 flights back to back and only use 4 clamps for the bottom feet of the flight, then I used the rest of the clamps to secure the tops of the flights, its very complicated but here are some pictures to clarify.
Here you can see the pipe clamp jig with the braces stretching across all the flights, this way I could save on clamps and 2 separate clamps across both feet instead of using individual clamps for each foot.
Here is a closer look at the top clamps securing the front feet and bottom brace can support the back feet
Another close up picture
This clamping jig is really versatile otherwise I would have needed to buy a boat load clamps, I could fit 4 flights this way and the other 5 were clamped elsewhere using the back to back method.
NEXT…
I need to do one more finishing sanding and wipe them down
Finally I need to apply a couple coats of oil based Polyurethane.