How We Keep Our Boards Tight, True, and Food-Safe: Titebond III and Bessey Clamps

September 16, 2025

When a board leaves our shop, it’s flat, tight‑seamed, and ready for generations of kitchen work. That starts long before the finish—at glue‑up. Here’s the exact clamping approach we use with Titebond III and a pair of BESSEY workhorses: 24" K‑Body REVOlution parallel clamps and 24" GSCC3.524+2K clutch‑style bar clamps.

The kit we trust

Glue: Titebond III Ultimate Wood Glue (food‑safe once fully cured, and highly water‑resistant)
Parallel clamps: 24" BESSEY K‑Body REVOlution (KRE) — jaw faces stay parallel and square, great for dead‑flat panels
Clutch‑style clamps: 24" BESSEY GSCC3.524+2K — slim, quick adjusters that sneak between the parallels to add targeted extra pressure
No cauls by default: Our KRE parallels and proper clamp technique keep panels dead flat; no need for cauls here.
Bits & bobs: Glue bottle or roller, shop towels, plastic putty knife, spray bottle of water (cleanup)

House rule: Dry‑fit joints first. If the dry run isn’t perfectly cooperative, the wet run (i.e. with glue) won’t magically improve.

Why Titebond III for cutting/serving boards

Kitchen‑friendly: Once fully cured, the glue line is food‑safe for indirect food contact.
Water‑resistant: Useful for cutting boards that meet the occasional splash and regular cleaning.
Workable open time: Enough time to spread glue, align, and clamp without panic.

Not a boat builder's glue-line: We don’t use it for below‑waterline or continuous submersion. Cutting boards are washed and dried, not soaked.

Our clamp‑up patterns

Boards vary, but these two patterns cover nearly everything we make.

1) Small/medium panels — All parallel

For narrower glue‑ups, we often go all KRE parallels. The large, square jaws keep the panel flat with minimal fuss. We alternate clamps above and below the workpiece to balance pressure and reduce bowing.

2) Wider panels — Parallels with clutch assists

For wider glue‑ups, we interleave clutch clamps between the parallels for targeted pressure. Picture the layout like this:

X I X I X I X

Where X = a KRE parallel clamp and I = a GSCC clutch‑style clamp. Parallels provide the flat, square baseline; clutch‑style clamps add gentle persuasion right where a joint needs it. We still alternate top/bottom to keep things honest.

Pre-glue surfacing (our twist)

We drum sand faces to 120–150 grit to erase planer/jointer marks and lock in uniform thickness before ripping.
We then table‑saw rip cut into strips, which makes for dead square (90' at every corner) strips, making for invisible joints when they're flipped on edge and arranged next to each other for an edge grain glue-up.
As mentioned, that sequence yields dead‑even dry‑fit lines that vanish when clamped, and the 120–150 grit leaves just enough tooth for Titebond III to wet the fibers and bond through the surface.

Step‑by‑step: how we do it

Choose your pattern. This is the fun, artistic and creative part - you can choose to put the strips in whatever arrangement you want. Let your soul and the wood speak to you! I often like to use strips for the edges of the board that have matching or similar patterned and interesting faces, so that the board has a "theme" to it on both edges when complete. Likewise, I like to match similar edge grain patterns, or play with contrasts and other designs. I let the wood speak to me depending on whatever the boards I've milled, surfaced, and ripped hold within.
Dry fit & layout. Stage your clamps to length, test the pattern (all‑parallel or interleaved), and confirm you have enough clamps for even pressure across the panel. Confirm all glue lines are tight and no gaps are forced close. If there are gaps, you'll want to arrange them in a different pattern, or address the problems on those specific strips. Following my process as mentioned, this isn't much of an issue.
Glue Time. With all the strips arranged in the desired format, resting on the bottom parallel clamps, begin to glue up one strip at a time. A generous helping on the edge of the first inner strip being applied to the outermost strip—continuous coverage from end to end. I like to be generous, since this needs to wet the other edge too - not just this one. When I've got the strip ready, I apply it to the other, using a slide and rock method to ensure there's even glue spread on both panels (I will add a video of this in time). Continue until all strips are glued-up - one at a time. A firm push into the other strips by hand as you add each strip to get an initial tack going is recommended. You can also make advantage of the 8 minute open time to keep the strips even for maximum board output from your glue-up (uneven glue-ups = wasted wood).
Set on the parallels. When all strips are glued and lined up, simultaneously tighten the outermost parallels first to keep the panel from skating, and only then tighten the inner parallels by the exact same amount. Go in small steps - no more than a half or quarter turn per rotation. When it's all tight, you'll have a dead flat panel with no movement from it's original position.
Drop in the clutch‑style clamps on top (on wide glue‑ups). Clamp them down between the parallel clamps for extra pressure. I advise not fully clamping one before doing another, and rather doing quarter, quarter, half half, etc. as you go. The idea here is like above, to keep even pressure across the panel. It's not realistically going to skate once you've got it clamped between parallels... but I like to be extra precise. You can also use parallels instead if you have enough.
Squeeze‑out timing. Let glue bead and gel, then gently lift away excess with a plastic putty knife. A shop towel can help get any of the rest off. I like to avoid using water on the board or clamps, and only use water to clean up glue on other surfaces to avoid compromising joint strength.
Let it set in clamps. In our shop, panels stay clamped for 12–24 hours. Manufacturer minimums are shorter, but the extra dwell gives a calmer cure, cleaner scrape, and avoids any chance of “sunken glue lines” when we drum‑sand the panel later.
After release. Take the panel out of the clamps, plane/sand, crosscut the ends 90', finish sand or roundover edges with a router and roundover bit, drop in a juice groove, handles, or whatever features if desired, and then it's off to the mineral oil bath. I recommend and advise sanding over planing - cured glue isn't kind to carbide and will wear your knives or indexable carbide inserts faster. Plus, planer marks aren't nice. We don’t aggressively stress a fresh joint for at least 24 hours from initial clamp-up to ensure a full cure.

Pressure, spacing, sanity

Aim for continuous seam closure and a bead of squeeze‑out—your best indicator you’ve got enough pressure and glue.
Keep clamp spacing consistent across the panel. Close spacing with many parallels spreads the load and keeps things honest—our default on wider panels.

About 'over‑torque' and 'starved lines' (real talk)

With PVA glues like Titebond III and hand clamps, “glue starvation” from clamping too hard is rare. When joints misbehave, it’s usually one of these: thin/uneven glue coverage, parts being forced to fit instead of actually fitting, or glue skinning before pressure. Our approach—lots of clamps, close spacing, even torque—spreads the load and keeps things flat. One key thing to look for:

The bead test: a continuous squeeze‑out along the seam = enough glue and pressure.

When to back off a hair

The panel begins to bow (balance top/bottom pressure).
You’re denting stock with clamp pads (soft stock or narrow load-bearing contact points) (not something I observe with my clamps and methods).
You’re cranking a visible gap closed instead of seating a clean fit (!!!).

Food‑safe finish line (quick note)

Once the glue has fully cured, we take our boards through our mineral‑oil bath and buff with Walrus Oil Cutting Board Oil. That soak‑and‑seal process locks in the glue‑up’s hard work and leaves a finish you can maintain at home. (Curious about the bath? I wrote a separate post on our mineral oil tank and why it matters.)

Why this matters

Clamps and glue aren’t the glamorous part—but they are the promise inside every Forest Goblin board: tight, true joints you’ll never think about (or notice) again. The alchemy of parallel jaws and a few well‑placed clutch assists gives us dead‑flat panels that stay that way. Quiet craft, loud results.

Questions?

Curious about custom sizing, species, or end‑grain builds? I’m happy to talk shop. Reach out via the contact page, or come see what’s in the cauldron this week.

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