Plywood tongues

[ljac133]

Hi, I'm making a low/coffee table from solid sapelle, planning to stack laminate 2" sections with two plywood tongues for each joint to make the top and the legs.

My question is, what kind of plywood is best for making loose tongue and groove joints, and does it really matter?

Thanks

Luke

 

[Chrispy]

Hi Luke, I see this is your first post so welcome to the forum!
Now for your question, I'm not sure just what it is you are asking, can you describe in a bit more detail what you are thinking of making.

 

[custard]

Welcome Luke.

The plywood tongues will add little in terms of needed strength, in theory the top will already be well over engineered with just glue alone. I'm assuming you're gluing up the leg to build up the thickness rather than making a butt joint with the apron or top, in which case the same applies to the leg.

However, if you're relatively new to woodworking and can't guarantee shooting an edge to perfection, or if glue ups tend to go a bit pear shaped, then there's no harm in adding a spline or two. As to what ply is best, well top quality baltic birch is probably best, but in reality pretty much any ply will do the job you want so don't worry too much about it.

 

[ljac133]

Thanks for the responses,

I'm basically copying of one of the Alan Peters low tables/benches, with the scooped out top.

The top and legs will be made out of 2" sapele laminated together, and is 3 1/2" deep at the thickest and half that in the middle section of the top.

So to clarify, the lamination is to build up the width of the top, and the width of the two legs (just under that of the top)

I'm planning to stop mortise and tennon the legs into the top, as there's no apron to restrict anything, and effectively all the grain is running in the same direction, so movement should in the same plane on all components. I think.

All the planing has been done from rough sawn with a No 6 fore plane, with the 18" sole, and I made up some massive shooting boards to get the edges square. So seems pretty flat and square to me - but, yes I am new to this so I think I'll add splines for safety's sake.

I figure once the top is together, I'll have to plane/scrape everything flush anyway, so as long as the faces which butt up against one another are flat, flushing up should be easy enough except on the little bits of end grain in the concave curve on the top.