What are the odds of this working

[Tom Sweeney]

OK I'm doing a glue up for a cutting board - Yeah the same one.
Anyway I have a section where I have 3" cherry & maple pieces glued together end to end.

I miscalculated by a hair when dimenshioning the wood & the cherry came out a little thicker, which would not work at all for the glue up. I didn't realize it till I already cut the pieces to 3" long. My solution is to glue them all together & then plane them out to the same thickness. The actual thickness is not critical - just that the cherry & maple peices are equal. then I will finish gluing it to the board.

I drilled holes & inserted dowels & then end glued the pieces together. The next problem is that the dowel holes aren't exactly straight - I don't have a running drill press yet. so the pieces are sort of cocked to each other like the picture I'm attaching. I dry fitted everything together then clamped it all together & used cauls on all four sides to force the wood to be more even. I left it that way for a few days & then just glued it up tonight. I know the wood & dowels will have some memory & try to pull upart but since the pieces are so small & I used the dowels & titebond II glue do you think it will hold?

Man that was a long question - sorry. here is the very hastely drawn pic of what I am talking about next to what the board looks like to give you an idea of what I mean.<br>
<img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/images/boardGlueup2.gif" align="left">

<img src="http://www.realtymarketing.com/images/cuttingboard.jpg"><br><br>

[Bob Boake]

A cutting board is liable to split just because of the wet/dry cycles it is subjected to. Since you were the assembler you should trust your own judgement and go with your gut instinct.

[Daniel Rabinovitz]

Tom
You might get lucky.
Squeeze the clamps "real" hard. "Act like mother nature"
It might be fairly straight when you unclamp it.
Then sand it flat!

[Don Henthorn Smithville, TX]

Not trying to appear extra wise, but in my humble opinion the dowels will add nothing to the strength of the glue up and can cause the problems you are experiencing. All of the pieces in the cutting board have enough long grain to long grain exposure that you don't have to worry about the shorter pieces coming loose. Just be sure they are all drawn closely together when clamping and
the board should outlast you and the intended users.

[Tom Gattiker]

Dowels tend to change shape and weaken when they do, and it just seems like the moisture inherent in a cutting board application is going to aggravate that tendency. You've got a lot of long grain to long grain surface in your design.