Panels Glued

Okay, I've glued the panels together and the process was fairly straightforward and simple. The only issue I had was warping. The two center boards for the bottom panel of the board were significantly warped. The manual that accompanies the board said to expect warping up to a quarter inch. The two center boards were warped about three quarters of an inch. This could be the result of the arid environmental conditions in which I live (high desert). To accommodate this warping, I glued the two center boards separately, and then glued the remaining boards to to those. I seemed to work just fine. Time will tell if this was prudent. The only other issue I encountered was making sure all the boards were glued evenly. This was like herding cats at night. The boards are ten feet long and as soon as I was able to get two or three boards lined up, it seemed as though another one was out of line. Eventually I got them lined up as best I could and let the glue dry. (BTW - Titebond III sets up pretty quickly).

I think the grain pattern on the panels will be distinctive. There are numerous book-matched knots that will probably look really good once the board is glassed. Some of the knots were holes, but I filled them with Titebond, as instructed. I hope that won't affect the strength of the panel once it's glued to the frame. The knots are covered with the small pieces of blue tape in the images above.

After letting the panels set, I lightly planed and sanded the interior side of the bottom panel to even the surface in preparation for gluing the frame to the panel.