The shelves in my vinotemp are 4 inch cedar planks. I use 3 of them per slot to make a shelf. However, I would like to glue the three of them together--side to side to side--in order to have the shelf be one piece instead of three.

What is the best way to accomplish this?
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You can just use wood glue. I have always used waterproof wood glue on Spanish Cedar and it works great.
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i use the dark wood glue whenever i glue up my humidor wood.
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Why do you use dark glue?
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It's a little stronger than the white/yellow wood glue.

it will hold up to "abuse" more.
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Titebond III is probably the best wood glue you can buy. Waterproof, moisture resistant over time, not terribly expensive, and extremely easy to work with, it dried odorless and colorless.

To glue up those boards then way you're asking is tricky task though. First, without some sort of joint or joining addition, gluing the boards edge to edge will provide the least amount of strength. There's no real way for you to overcome this, because your boards are already so thin to make the shelves. So be careful how much weight you put on them.


Number two, you're going to need some clamps...either QuickGrip style, or pipe clamps, which you can provide even pressure to firmly press both sides of your shelf together.


Start by marking what edges will be glued together, lining up the boards how you want them arranged, and make some small pencil marks so it's easy to re-align the boards when you apply glue.

Brush on a thin layer of glue on both edges that will be glued together, lay them flat (wax paper helps for this to keep glue off of things and keep the boards from sticking to things), align them together how they go, and press them together. Clamp once you have all three boards glued. Clamp firmly, but not so tight that you squeeze out all the glue. Wipe off excess glue with a damp paper towel, and leave to cure for at least 24 hours. Un-clamp after 24 hours, and leave it to continue curing for another day. Sand or scrape any excess glue off as you please (remember to use a dust mask since Spanish cedar dust is toxic).
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I only use west system epoxy, I built boats from scratch for years and its the only thing to use, plus you can mix in the dust to make a matching seam:-)
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I always use Titebond III, like Silound suggests, and I only use dark glue when working with dark woods, like Black Walnut.

I never heard dark glue was stronger, interesting.
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just going with what was told to me in my woodworking classes. :-)

but i do use titebond for everything wood related.
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Thanks for the replies guys. :-)
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I'm lazy. I have gorilla glue and am not afraid to use it :-)

For all my shelving, I use two pieces of spanish cedar, but do not glue them together, instead I leave an air gap between the pieces which is pretty large.
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You may also want to ask around to see if anyone you know has a biscuit cutter. Slapping two to three biscuits between each piece of wood will dramatically improve the tensile strength as well as torsional strength of the end shelf.

If you lived near me I would have you come over and we could have those biscuit holes cut in less than 5 minutes for all of them.

Give it a thought. Maybe get a toolstore to "demonstrate" one of their biscuit joiners on your shelf wood.

Then use what ever glue you want from the above suggestions....I am none to clever when it comes to all those big city folk with their new fangled high tech glues
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A little photo:

Image

Come on over and I will cut them for you and we can smoke a cigar :-)

Chas
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When I glued spanish cedar together for my shelves I just used basic wood glue. Worked perfectly.
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Ditto. Titebond III works perfectly fine and flexes with the expanding/contracting of the wood.
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I actually like a little space between the planks for better air flow. :-)
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Titebond III is the way to go. Ditto with the Biscuits. Although you may not need them as cigars tend not to be very heavy. I guess it depends what you are going to use the shelf for but biscuits will hold them there for a very long time indeed
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Got some Titebond as suggested. Haven't used it yet. Only thing I'm doing is gluing them together so I can push and pull them at the same time without one of them falling on the floor. Nothing more than 4 or so boxes of cigars going on any of them so I'm not concerned about the "strength" of the joint. And I've got 1 1/2 inch holes cut out of them so I have plenty of air flow.

I don't have a biscuit cutter but I did eat some biscuits for breakfast Sunday.
:-)

Thanks for all the advice guys.
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