05/21/2026
I have a dull woodworking question. I need some help. I'm considering attempting another butcherblock table. My last one destroyed itself in less than a year. It took months to build and I'm devastated. I used ash scraps from a local factory, and despite letting them dry in my shop for over a year, and using a moisture meter, The whole top developed cracks, some of them between the pieces on the glue joints, some of them through the pieces themselves. Some of them opened up to more than half an inch. it's completely unusable. 🙁
Yes, the wood was dry enough, yes I alternated the grains. I suspect most of the moisture issue came from the glue- I used something like 1.5 gallons of TBII during this glueup. First I made a whole bunch of edge glued pannels, 12" wide, and then I planed those pannels and face glued them together in a big stack. it occurs to me that the water from the glue in the middle of the panel has nowhere to go. the top is 18" deep, so the middle glue joint is 9" from the top or bottom, and a foot or better from any of the sides, plus it's trapped by all the outer glue on the outsides that did dry into waterproof joints. That moisture has nowhere to go but into the wood, swelling it during the curing process, and then in the maine winter with the dry air, the entire thing shrinks and shatters. How do I get around this? I know these have been built since ancient times. I know some of them have vertical dovetails, but I don't have the tooling for that, and not all of the historic ones I've seen have them. Same for threaded steel rods running through. Some of them have those, but not nearly all, and certainly not the medieval ones I found pics of when I was researching.
For attempt #2, I've got a good source of multi-year-dry red oak. I'm considering going with octagonal dowels instead of rectangular stock. seems like the larger surface area and multi-angle engagements will help any wood movement occur in more randomized directions, preventing additive stress between pieces. I'm also wondering if I need to do it in smaller layups, letting them dry for a few months between? the downside of that is, the ambient moisture will vary greatly, and I worry that'll complicate fitting, and lead to internal stresses after final assembly. plus, I'm worried about squeezout between all those angled surfaces.
I'm also considering other glues, that aren't water based. problems there are, epoxies aren't really food safe, and CA glues dry too fast. Are there long cure CA glues on the market? are there other glues I'm unaware of that would be food safe?
General thoughts? What do you guys think? anyone ever tried something like this? I was only able to find a few people online who tried it, and no other examples of glueups of this size.