Solid Surface Joint

Double Check Measurements

Check the sizes of all pieces and make sure they are the same and the drawings plus a ¼” scribe wherever necessary.

Prep

Check all visible faces for any defects. Sometimes little black specs are within the material. If so, you can usually repair by using the corner of your chisel to scrape it out and filling with glue. If they are in the middle of a large countertop of door face, consider recutting that piece.

Check all edges to make sure they are straight and bump free. Smaller pieces tend to move when cut on the CNC. If really bad use a router and a straight edge to fix but make sure it doesn’t interfere with the overall size of the piece.

Sand

Joint Edges

Leave all joint edges at 80 so they are porous enough to accept glue.

Wear Gloves

Put blue gloves on. The oils on your hands can change to colour of a joint.

Send all rounded over edges through the edge bander but be careful not to do any edges that have any sort of joint on either end.

Sand all edges with an 80-grit block. Work your way up to 150 and then 320 for any visible edges.

Clean your work surface with isopropyl alcohol.

Put clear packing tape on the bench wherever your joint will land. Corian glue takes the colour of whatever it is touching when it dries so this is crucial. Use at least a couple pieces (of tape) as the glue with spread quite a bit on the bench due to the clamping pressure.

Clean the Tape

Clean tape with iso all well once on the bench.

Now clean all joint edges with iso and at least 2” of each surface where the glue might squeeze out.

Secure

Clamp larger piece to bench with joint over your taped section.

Dry clamp the joint so that you can set the height on the adjustable suction cup clamps. Once adjusted flush leave them in place when you release the cups.

"Dry Clamp"

"Dry Clamp" means to check the what the joint will look like with no glue. This is done before you glue the pieces and is an acurate representation of what the joint will look like with glue.

This way when you do the real joint your height will already be adjusted to make the top surface flush. When tightening the joint together make sure not to overtighten. It should just get tight in your hand and the back of the smaller piece should just start to lift off the bench.

Lastly clamp the smaller piece down to make a flat surface and that is what your joint will look like.

caution

If it doesn’t look good here, it will only be worse with glue so make sure to take all steps during dry clamp as you only have 5 minutes of open time once glue is applied.

Clamping small pieces

If one of the pieces is smaller than 6” in width, then the suction cup clamps will not be used.

You will have to either use quick grips or bar clamps across the joint (protecting the edges) and use quick grips or f-clamps on the surface to make the joint flush.

To do so cut some blocks with at least a ½” by ½” cut out that you can place over the squeezed-out glue bead on top. Then use quick grips or f-clamps centered on the blocks to make both sides flush.

caution

Make sure not to touch the glue with the blocks or it will take the yellow from it.

Glue

After dry clamp goes well add a thick bead of glue to the top edge of your fixed piece. Add a second, if necessary, you want a decent amount of squeeze out.

Push the other piece into glue bead and move side to side a couple times to spread the glue.

Add suction cups and suction to surface. If you left the height set from dry clamp you shouldn’t have to adjust for flush, just tighten together until the back end of the small piece just starts to lift.

Clamp the back end down of the small piece and make sure neither piece is lifting in the middle. If it is, either add heavy buckets in the middle or more clamps wherever necessary.

If you want to check to see how flush it is cut a tiny piece of Corian and slide it across the joint from both directions. If you get stuck, you know you must adjust it.

How long?

Leave clamped for at least half an hour or until top bead is hard to the touch.

Once dry release all clamps and pry off bench. It will slightly stick.

Forgot the tape...

If you forgot the tape, it will be really hard to get off.

Clean

Route the top of the joint within a half millimieter of the surface using the router with the wooden blocks on the base plate and a flush bit.

Then sand flush with an orbital starting at 80 grit and working to 150, then 320 then wet sand with red scotch bright and soapy water.

tip

Sand in a checker board patern, Hoizantal then vertical. While overlapping each pass by 1/2.

Hit all edges by hand with scotch bright and soapy water before doing your final pass with the orbital on the face with scotch bright and water.

Clean off all surfaces with isopropyl alcohol.

Wrap all fragile edges and your done!