Help with bench glue up

[gardnesd]

Let me start by saying that I do not have a jointer or adequate table saw. I build a jig and used the 96" festool track with my 55 saw to cut strips for this benchtop. That said, the LVL bench will be 23 in wide and i will add maple around the edges later. I have cut the strips, planed the wax off by hand, thickness planed all the individual strips(2-7/8 x 1-5/8 x 96). I have also hand planed to flat a 2x14x8 piece of hem fir I found in the attic when we moved in this house in january. So, here's where I am now....I have glued up three sections of the bench over the past three nights on the flat hem fir with clamping and I will run the last piece (call it C) thru the thickness planer at lunch today. Now it's time to prepare for the big glue up. I have borrowed a biscuit joiner for the glue up. As I said before I do not have a jointer. I do have a jointer plane and a thickness planer. I'll mention that the thickness planer's mouth is not wide enough to turn A,B and C on end(not that that would help at this point). Should I hand plane with a jointer the to be glued edges before I glue?? Any other ideas. I do have a friend who can run a kerf down the glue edges on his table saw to ensure square, would this help?

[bois]

I'd say anything you can do to get each of the three pieces as flat and square as possible before your glue-up will be very beneficial in the end. I would suggest you hit them all with the jointer plane and get them as flat as possible, and then run them through your friend's table saw to square them up. Since you can't get the pieces through the planer, you will also want to make sure they are all the same thickness at this point. If you can get them flat, square, and dimensioned to thickness as best as possible, you will be in a much better place after you glue all three pieces together. If any of them are not flat or square when you do the glue up, you could be setting yourself up for a lot more hand planing later. Also, be sure to mark the "top" of each component and reference the biscuit joiner off that surface (the top should be the side that is the most dead flat). This will ensure the tops of each piece are as close to aligned as possible (even if they are slightly off on thickness), since it's much more important for the top to be flat and flush than the bottom. Good luck on this, it sounds like you are on the home stretch.

[gardnesd]

Rob, I can run the pieces through the thickness planer flat. I cannot turn them on edge and plane. So my difficulty is ensuring square not coplanar top and bottom.

[bois]

If each of the components was square before you glued up your A, B, and C pieces I would expect the glue-up to also be square. If not, the table saw would be the best method of ensuring they are square (assuming the blade height can get through the thickness of the bench top). If not, you may have to resort to the old fashioned way of planing the sides square with the jointer. You just use a combo square to mark the high spots, and mark a square on each end, and plane to square. That's how they did it in the old days.