# Joining 2 live edge slabs



## Tamason28 (May 18, 2016)

I have some live edge cherry slabs that I am planning on making a dining table out of them. They will finish at 2" thick. I am inquiring about some ideas on A. How to join them effectively and B. How to keep them flat. I was thinking about edge gluing and using dowels. As for keeping it flat, I was planning on routing a mortise for a piece of C channel and using some lag bolts. The slabs have been drying in the basement for over a year. They are next to the wood burner, which runs non stop for about 4 months. Should be pretty dry by now. Any thoughts or best practice? Thanks!


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## Brian(J) (Feb 22, 2016)

Tamason28 said:


> I have some live edge cherry slabs that I am planning on making a dining table out of them. They will finish at 2" thick. I am inquiring about some ideas on A. How to join them effectively and B. How to keep them flat. I was thinking about edge gluing and using dowels. As for keeping it flat, I was planning on routing a mortise for a piece of C channel and using some lag bolts. The slabs have been drying in the basement for over a year. They are next to the wood burner, which runs non stop for about 4 months. Should be pretty dry by now. Any thoughts or best practice? Thanks!


Hi,
A. The glue is enough. For a glue-up like this the dowels don't do anything for me and I never use them. They are more for alignment, or for acting as the tenon in a mortise and tenon type joint. I almost never use dowels. Most people glue up the slabs longer than they need and trim them down, which means you end up with a bit of scrap with your glue line in the middle. It's fun to break the wood and see how the glued line reacts, it never breaks at the glue line.

b. If the wood is flat now and you finish both sides, and don't leave the slab in direct sunlight for a long time so that the top gets real dry and the bottom doesn't, it will stay pretty flat. Nothing wrong with the C-channel but make sure to elongate the holes in the channel so the bolts can slip back and forth a little as the wood moves.

Have fun, and keep it as simple as you can.


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