Loose tenon glue up, Epoxy or Titebond?

Re: Loose tenon glue up, Epoxy or Titebond?

H.C. Sakman (Chico)

Hi,

I think you are having an issue due to sequence/technique of your work. Glue the loose tenons to the parts which would be tenoned pieces FIRST, making sure not to use too much glue. So, treat those tenoned parts as if they were tenoned to begin with and then carry on with your assembly.

Epoxy is out of the question, I'd not even consider epoxy for this kind of work. I can't remember, somebody stated that T-II & T-III should not be used for furniture. I respectfully, yet strongly disagree. Where ordinary PVA or T-I is more than sufficient for furniture assembly, T-III gives you longer open time. There are also "extended time" PVA glues for really complicated or multiple joints. About the hide glue... fine, it works fine and can be easily undone with water/steam but who would built furniture with total disassembly repairs in mind, unless it is a musical instrument?

Lastly, use wood shims/wedges to fill loose fitting M&T joints, don't rely on type of glue that is advertised for "gap filling". Having said that, mixing (one type of glue on one side, other on the other side, I don't mean mixed them together before application) poly and PVA together works very well in some situations were you have no any other (mechanical) means of gap filling.

Chico

Re: Loose tenon glue up, Epoxy or Titebond?

William Duffield

who would built furniture with total disassembly repairs in mind?

In the 18th and early 19th Century, they certainly weren't thinking about that. They were much more interested in getting it out the door and putting food on the table. But modern museum furniture conservators are sure glad hide glue was all they had back then. These conservators now use only hide glue in order to continue to preserve these valuable antiques (to which we currently often assign a much higher value than did the original builders or their customers).

Re: Where is this data?

Larry Clinton At Frankfort, (Central) Indiana

Bill, before I posted I tried to find the testing data. I spent about 20 min. but was unsuccessful. This test may have been published on a site that included other woodworking information as the search engines did not find this data. It has been a few years since I read it, sorry, can't prove what I did see, but I did study the data at the time and decided to use hot melt hide glue from then on.

I did have some anecdotal data from failures when I did try to repair chairs using yellow wood glue 50+ years ago, though possibly my technique was partially at fault. I normally do not use epoxy to repair or adhere any woodworking joint although I might if I was a boat builder. I use Titebond 3 for outdoor projects and will use other Titebond glue's for some items, cabinets etc. that rarely requiring re-gluing. The only time I use a cyanoacrylate is to repair a missing sliver or minor tear-out ( I have found I can fill a small defect using it by wetting the area with the glue and filling with sanding dust)

I do not have any problem using Hot melt hide glue, I have a "hot pot" (sold for heating soup, I believe) and a thermometer I use to monitor the temperature, I mix the glue in a baby food jar and immerse it in water in the pot, I can use the same batch for a couple of days, then discard. Although my shop is heated and air conditioned, I have heated the wood when making a lengthy glue-up.

I find it easy to remove the excess and it doesn't seem to interfere with staining. All the tests I have conducted with long grain and dovetail joints show wood failure vs glue line failure so I am happy with the glue ~ YMMV.

Re: Where is this data?

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

I don't doubt your recollection of the conclusions. I would like to study the details of how they did the experiments.