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Greg Guarino[_2_] Greg Guarino[_2_] is offline
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Default A waste of time?

On Saturday, December 19, 2020 at 1:05:55 PM UTC-5, Leon wrote:
On 12/19/2020 12:02 PM, Leon wrote:
On 12/18/2020 11:10 PM, Greg Guarino wrote:
It's been a while, but I have gotten some good advice here.

https://flic.kr/p/2kgvcD4

I'm recycling some 1.5" thick butcher-block style table top material
that I got for free. The piece was a weird shape, something like 15" x
84". I wanted to make it about 41"x26" for a small coffee table,
although I haven't decided yet what to put underneath the top.

I cut it in half lengthwise and then ripped it down with a circular
saw and straightedge. It was difficult due to a not-great saw, a
not-great blade and my not-great skills. I kind of butchered it, even
doing the cut in three passes, but I was expecting that. I "jointed"
the edge with a router, a straightedge and a straight bit, which
worked well.

Anyway, despite a heck of a lot of long-grain surface to glue, I
decided to use dowels to fasten the two pieces together. I figured
that - if nothing else - they would make the alignment easy and
nothing would slip when I put the clamps on. It worked well, but were
the dowels a waste of time, at least for strength?


Absolutely a waste of tome for strength.

Instead of dowels on something this massive, just put a clamp over the
joint on each end to insure that both halves are not slipping up or down
after you squeeze them together.


Thanks for the replies. I was happy not to have to worry about the alignment, but I suspected that the dowels were not needed for strength.