Woodworking: What is it called when there are long pieces of stronger wood inserted into a table top made of softer wood?

July 29, 2008 3:27 PM

Woodworking: What is it called when there are long pieces of stronger wood inserted into a table top made of softer wood?

This is a picture of what I'm talking about. I think.

What is that called? Does the process have a name? Is it to prevent warping?

posted by idledebonair to Media & Arts (6 answers total)

The thick pieces have grooves routed out, and then the lighter colored small pieces are glued in to join the pieces together. It's like tongue and groove, except that the "tongue" is a separate piece sunk into both pieces.
posted by Forktine at 3:33 PM on July 29, 2008

Those are splines. They are done mostly to make alignment easier during glue up and I suspect in this case for the visual. There is some debate on absolute strength but a longitudinal glue joint like that is plenty strong without the spline (IE: the surrounding wood breaks before the glue joint).
posted by Mitheral at 3:33 PM on July 29, 2008

Tongue and groove parquetry.
*fans oneself*
posted by tellurian at 5:15 PM on July 29, 2008

Splines for sure.
That joint is almost assuredly for visual appeal. For alignment, there are machined cuts that make serve the purpose of alignment and have greater glue area.
posted by plinth at 5:41 PM on July 29, 2008

Yeah, those are splines (tongue and groove joints, tellurian, involve boards with grooves on one side and tongues on the other; one board's tongue slips into another board's groove).

Agree it was probably done here mostly for appearance, but those splines would help keep the boards aligned during glue up.
posted by notyou at 6:44 PM on July 29, 2008

Agreed, splines. Both for alignment during glue-up, as well as to increase the surface area of glue, to increase bond strength. And for decoration. Splines have been largely replaced by biscuits and finger-jointing
posted by misterbrandt at 9:45 PM on July 29, 2008