I’m in the process of putting together an Ikea kitchen and have four nice lengths of solid oak worktop ready to be fitted. A lot of googling and youtubing has left be undecided between biscuit joints, clamped joints, or a combo for a belt & braces approach. Any suggestions? Pros and cons of each? I can borrow a biscuit jointer, and I already have the tools to cut slots on the underside for the clamp bolts. What I need now is a bunch of conflicting opinions on how best to join the pieces  🙂

Is it solid oak? Ikea refer to “a top layer of solid wood”. The upside of clamps is that they will pull the joint together better than biscuits; the downside is that a steel clamp will blacken oak and corrode, but hopefully out of sight

I don’t know if the clamps are available in other materials, or if there’s an effective sealant to stop the corrosion and blackening

I used both. The biscuits keep it aligned and increase the glue area while the clamps hold it together. Went together pretty easily and its still together now. Could’ve probably not bothered with the biscuits but I don’t think it would’ve worked without the clamps.

^^^ What he said. The biscuits are great to aid surface alignment and slipping when clamping up, and the bolts are great to….clamp it up.

In my experience, plated metal parts such as those types of bolts will not really stain Oak unless they get wet. This can happen with the glue obviously but isn’t going to be a problem on the underside anyway.

The classic place it happens is cramping glued boards where the metal sash cramps contact the glue line and react with the Oak.

If you were that worried you could chuck a bit of varnish in the channel first, but it’s not an issue.

Cheers all, sounds like a couple of biscuits to help alignment plus some bolts for strength is the way to go. Bolts will be underneath so any staining would be out of sight.

Timba – they are solid oak, butcher block style, i.e. lots of 50mm wide strips laminated together, 38mm thick. They’ve stopped doing them now and just do 3mm laminate over particle board.

Also cut them and if possible leave them for a few days before fitting, I’ve had solid  worktops swell in the past due to the cut ends.

Tbh, biscuits are a bit over kill for oak with bolted joints too.  3 bolts and some wood glue is plenty strong but get it aligned quick, biscuits aren’t going to hurt though if you’ve got the kit.

Id just bolt. I would however get some zip bolts rather than the ones you normally buy with the worktops. Makes tightening a million times easier.

Haven’t seen those zip bolts before, cheers Nick. They do look a lot less faff.

If your joining them at 90’, I wouldn’t use any type of wood glue.

I don’t glue them at all. Oil, butt together and clamp with worktop bolts. I have a Festool domino machine but biscuits will do.

Make sure you leave a expansion gap all around, use brackets that allow movement.

Some good info here

https://www.worktop-express.co.uk/gbu0-display/solid_wood_worktop_installation_instructions.html