Steve:

I don’t see any yeild problem. Buy 12′ sheets, cut them to 8′, seam the 4′ drops together back into 8′.

I would rip the half of the strips at 3 1/2″ and half at 3 5/8″. Run a 1/8″ deep by 1/2″ wide (solid surface thickness) rabbet down the backside of the 3 1/2″ strips. In the shop, butt, seam, profile and finish the unrabbeted edge of the 3 1/2″ to the 3 5/8″ strip.

Rip a strip of 3/4 ” plastic laminate 45″ long or so. Cut it in half and glue the halves together. Cut the doubled laminate into 1″ long shims.

On the jobsite, clean your rabbets and edges and set each half a column in place and secure with one cove Dani clamp top, bottom and middle. Spread the cove Dani clamps and insert a shim into the rabbet. The columns are in place, you have two cleaned seams seperated perfectly and are ready to glue.

Starting at the top, dispense glue into the shimmed rabbet all the way to the bottom. Pull the shims, the squeeze-out will probably cover the shimmed area and place cove Dani clamps all the way down the column every foot or so. You’ll have to clamp the rabbet in and back, so you’ll need enough clamps (32) to go each direction on both seams. The rabbet keeps you flush.

No v-groover required, and half the job is done by shop guys instead of field guys. Gluing to the shimed rabbet reduces air time and chance of contamination on the worst color possible.

Joe

Steve:

You didn’t mention the area in which these columns are being used, but 1/8″ is not adequate for most commercial appications. You might as well put in plastic laminate, let ’em tear it up and go back in a few years.

Joe

What color do you need? I have some 1/4 48.5x 84 in certain colors. Check out the Marketplace .

Steve:

You can probably get 1/4″ Corian and have someone push it through a V-groover. Send the V-grooved sheets out flat and have the field guys glue ’em, stand ’em and tape ’em in place.

Since you’re not paying a guy $32.00 an hour to peel tape off those v-grooved corners and to profile and finish same, it doesn’t matter to you.

I’ll install ’em for scale, transportation, a fat per diem and I’ll even suppy the Dani clamps if we do it my way.

Joe

V-grooving on your CNC never seemed to be a great idea to me.

We don’t have a V-groover, but we adapted some cool tricks into the Streibig Panel saw and it V-Grooves great.

Got it down to about an eight-minute turn around from the regular blade.

Tom

V grooving on a CNC is a iffy process. Your spoilboard will need to be perfect, preferably freshly machined just before attempting to do it. You CAN use your CNC to machine a mitered edge on strips. Take the strips and tape them together and fold the column up. I would even apply tape to the open face to mask it off from the adhesive. Squirt the adhesive in one continous bead directly in the center of the V. Do NOT open up any of the miters once you have the adhesive in them. You will trap air bubbles in the seam and they will be the devil to fill after. If you accidentally drop a strip after gluing you must re apply another bead down the V center. Use only 3M #355 tape. Other brands or common packing tape will make you sorry, they may not strip clean or even worse, not come off in one piece. It won’t take a lot of time to pull the tape off and you will be left with a column that only needs the edges broken. We have done this many times with wood veneer and P-lam too. Try a test run with your table saw. One trick I would often use is to take a sanding block and ever so lightly take the sharpness off the mitre before taping them together. This will make it easier to tape together and it will also aid in pulling the seams tighter together.