How would you exert pressure on opposite ends when joining boards end to end to make a longer boards?
Carol Reed: I’d use wood screw clamps and Quick-Grips®. Clamp a pair of wood screw clamps from either edge across the wood near the end to be joined. Do this on both boards. Butt (hopefully with some biscuits inserted!) join the ends and use Quick-Grip clamps to pull the wood screw clamps together.
John Brock: Since end-grain joining has little or no strength, some kind of joining strategy must be used to expose side grain to make a strong joint. This could be fingers, dovetails or, my preference, a low-angle scarf joint. In this case little or no end pressure is required since the joint only needs to be held in place lengthwise while the planks are clamped as in edge joining.
