Creative Fun with Mitered Laminates by Dave Knipfer

Creative Fun with Mitered Laminates
By David Knipfer

Here is a sure fired way to get you out of the occasional black hole of creative block..... have some fun making mitered laminates then use them to build something new.

First.... build a linear laminate of contrasting woods.... a sandwich, if you will, just normal edge gluing procedures.

Cut the linear laminate across it's width .... and angle or width you choose ...

Here I cut the cherry/maple/purpleheart laminate at 45 degrees with 1.2" long sections.

Flip over every other piece ..... now it's looking more interesting ...

Glue them back together one segment at a time ....

Clean these up and you will have a 1st generation mitered laminate ....

You could go and cut thse apart again and make a 2nd generation laminate ..... the patterns there will blow your mind!!! ... or you can use this as-is for any project your imgaination desires.

I'm making some gift-priced clocks for the Holiday selling season .... you can see the layout lines of one body at the left end of the cherry laminate sitting on my fence.

Whatever you do with the ...... mitered laminates have endless possibilities for jump starting your creativity.

Try some for yourself.

Clocks made from some of this. . .

Somehow, I managed to sell that tablesaw full of mini-mitered clocks .... so I'm making some more well before I though I would have to.

My post on making the mitered laminates began at the point where the linera laminate was already cut into 45 degree sections. Here is the beginning of the process ..... creating the original linear laminate.

The strips are cut and layed out on my tablesaw for gluing. I flip every one that needs glue up to face me ........ have your clamps and everything you need ready to go.

Gluing up a multi-part laminate is not the time for going slow or remembering last minute things. Fast is Good, Faster is Better, and Really Faster is Even Better.... and I use Titebond I Extend (Type I version since I don't need the water resistance). The problem here is not time to get it adjusted in the clamps but rather the open time of the glue exposed to air. PVA glue starts to skim over when exposed to air in about 30 seconds .... thats how long you have to get the glue slobered over each piece and get them covered up by the next piece. Wait any longer than that and you'll be re-making the parts!

The oozing mess goes into my clamps for 3 hours or so.

Those are shop made panel clamps. The original plans for them were in Wood Magazine 3 or 4 years ago. I modified those plans to build these which suit my smaller scale needs.

They are an excellent way to glue up flat panels ...... which a linear laminate actually is.

The cross bars keep the panel perfectly flat while the screw clamps hold everything together ...... this is a gazillion times improvement over using bar clamps for the job.

And quickly I have 3 more linear laminates to start all over again at the point I showed last month ..... these will become the mitered laminate bodies for some more clocks.

Enjoy,

Knipfer