end gluing boards??? how to??

I would think that anything that small will have to be reinforced with something like a dowel or pin. Especially if there is going to be any lateral force applied to the joint.

Maybe drill the ends of the blanks, insert a dowel of the proper size and use polyurethane glue. I’v e never tried it so this is only a guess.

I would say that this is a bad idea for many reasons. The most obvious is that end grain glueups are just waiting for a glueline failure. Even if you did glue them up, you have to mill them and this presents a problem….Will the glue fail in the middle of the milling operation and be thrown into your face?

Keep the pen blanks for pens and go buy or salvage some longer pieces for your projects….

JC

-- Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan

Hey colby
I agree with JC about end grain gluing is not good joinery. There is one trick that might work if your blank is wide enough. You can cut your blank on the diagonal from corner to corner and slide the two pieces apart to make a longer piece and glue it back together. This is kind of board stretching. If this is a pre cut blank I would glue this on to a longer board to preform this operation for saftey reasons.

-- Jim from Heirloom Woodshop, custom furniture ,maker, woodworking school, heirloomwoodshop.com

I might add that I’ve seen some commercial projects that use tiny finger joints to glue up endgrain…..They are basically little scarf joints formed with a special router bit…...This way you get a combination of long grain and endgrain….

Rockler/Woodcraft carries them…...

-- Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -Carl Sagan

I agree with all the above.

A glued end joint is just waiting to fail.

But if like lew suggests, you drill a hole in each piece and glue in a dowel to cross the joint you should be OK.
That is, if after you are done working it, there is some dowel left.

Tool handles should be good also if the tang of the tool goes all the way through the handle.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

thanks for the tips, this idea is kinda what im looking to do except not a table per say
http://lumberjocks.com/projects/4591
so i know it can be done, i know this was reinforced with aluminum a little but im looking to make some smaller things, the first thing im thinking of is a small desk thing that you put your wallet and rings and such in, just like a shallow open box, i forget what they are called. i guess next time i find time to do some wood working ill try the dowel idea, ill be sure to let everyone know what happens, thanks again

-- Colby Norwood- learn how to measure, measure once, cut once

I think you are talking about a valet.

If you are gluing pieces end to end and also pieces side by side so the joints overlap by a fair amount you should be fine.
A dowel would be needed only if you were just going end to end on a single piece.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

For some purposes scarf joints work well, such as in boat/canoe building, specifically cedar stripping. I think if you can pull of a great scarf joint without gaps, and without affecting the desired aesthetic of the piece you’ll be fine in terms of structural integrity.

-- Jarrod, Taos, NM http://jzmurphree.wordpress.com/

You could use a half lap joint also to glue two pieces end to end.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Excellent perspective Karson,
A half lap should work nicely, especially if dowelled or pinned. Could turn a through pin into a decorative aspect of a project. Like square pegs with four sided ends.
Best of luck, BTKS

i didnt even think of something simple like a half lap joint, thanks for that

-- Colby Norwood- learn how to measure, measure once, cut once

Half lap is a good way to go and since it is side grain to side grain you shouldn’t need any type of reinforcement. The scarf joint would look a lot better though if it doesn’t reduce your diameter too much.

-- Mike, American in Norway

Seems to me that if you are working with pen blanks, make sure they are all the same size and glue them together staggered lenthwise to make finger joints, much like the table in your example.