Now I can glue the two assemblies together. The thin strip in the saw kerfs provides the required alignment. This step was a bit stressful. The thin strip of walnut started to swell and caused a fair bit of resistance when I tried to fit the two halves together. A bit (lot?) of persuasion with a rubber mallet got the pieces in place.
Before this glue up I cut a surface on the upper assembly parallel to the main glue joint. That is the top surface in this image.
This gave me a surface to apply my clamps.
I still only had a narrow landing for clamping. Luckily I got squeeze out on both edges.
There is one more layer of walnut to add to the assembly. It is the one on the upper right part of the image below. This glue up also requires an alignment plank.
After gluing, the blank was prepped for turning. I first cut it into a square and then an octagon.
My octagon wasn’t perfect but it doesn’t matter. There is enough wood to create the desired diameter.
With a glue up as complex as this, I'd assume you had the mallet standing by 😀
Trying simpler strip glue ups for cutting boards drove me nuts! Gotta work fast and have everything set for alignment or you'll be doing it all over again.
