End Joining Long Boards

The Problem. Every so often we are all faced with a “how the heck do I clamp this” situation. I was recently building a very large boat shaped conference table with a solid wood edge where the long-side edging was two curved pieces with a butt joint in the middle. Darn now, that butt joint’s gonna be a bugger to clamp! I started by gluing one of the edging pieces to the center panel, and then I added the second edging piece. Here’s what I did to “pull home” the butt joint so it was tight.

The Tools. I made four 2-1/4″ x 2-1/4″ x 2-1/4″ blocks and glued (yellow glue) 120 grit sandpaper to one face of each block. I also gathered up four medium duty bar clamps.

The Setup. I aligned and clamped two of the blocks (sandpaper against the wood) to the end of edging piece that was already glued to the tabletop’s panel, and I clamped the other two blocks to the end of the loose edging piece.

The Solution. I applied glue to the ends of both pieces, added bar clamps horizontally across the blocks, and applied equal pressure to pull the joint together tightly. Of course in my case, I also glued and clamped the long edge to the tabletop’s panel at the same time. That’s it! I hope you find many uses for this trick.