by shil » Fri Apr 08, 2005 12:06 pm
My trailer's about 10' long, so a 4 x 8 wouldn't cut it. I built the sides from solid 3/4" ply, butt jointed together with wood glue and dowels. I already had a doweling jig and didn't want to buy more tools. Shrug, you're right: those words make no sense.
Anyhow, once the glue set the joint was strong enough that we could easily pick the piece up and move it around, no worries. I positioned the joint right at the galley wall and backed it up with a butt block, with a dado for that wall ploughed into the block. If I hadn't used a dado I would not have bothered backing up the joint.
Scarf joints are swell for boats, where you may be bending the plywood into a boat like shape, there's no 'hard spot' caused by the butt block. IMHO it's overkill for a straight, flat wall. Like Norm said, glues today are stronger than wood.
What a great long post. Bored at work today...