Steve Jacobs wrote: > My second reaction was to re-read all my material on glue joints. Every > indication is that a properly done glue joint is as at least as strong > as the host material. A scarf joint is allowed in a wing spar (cap) > according to AC43 - at an angle similar to the minimum spec on grain > run-out within wood, suggesting that a glue line is at least as strong > as nature's own laminations (wood-grain) - is this not the very reason > that a laminated beam is seen to be stronger than a single piece of > lumber (of the same size and wood)?
Personally, I agree 100%. I'd still do it the way you are doing it, and have no reservations at all. If I build another one, it'll be just like you built yours. I'm not sure it's necessarily the glue that makes a laminated beam stronger (although is probably a contributor), but the fact that if there is a hidden knot inside a large monolithic beam it goes undetected, whereas in a lamination it would be culled out and replaced with good wood. Also, the wood grain isn't perfectly aligned between laminations, so there's a certain amount of "crack-checking" that goes on, like in plywood, which I would consider to be a good thing. Mark Langford, Huntsville, AL N56ML at hiwaay.net see KR2S project N56ML at http://home.hiwaay.net/~langford
