Best glue for an outdoor cedar chair

Re: Best glue for an outdoor cedar chair

Dave Bair

Titebond III

Re: Best glue for an outdoor cedar chair

Bill Howatt

I'm closer to Ottawa than Toronto but about 15 years ago I made 36" wagon-wheels with a spruce rim and spokes I turned. One was joined with Gorilla urethane glue and the other with epoxy. Both have held up identically well (taken inside in winter) with no failures. Having said that, Titebond III is very good and less messy.

Bill

Re: Best glue for an outdoor cedar chair

TomD

You asked about the best, not what merely works, and that would be WEST epoxy, or similar products, like RAKA, System III.

If your stock size is amenable, a better joint is a metal threaded rod, in a pocket of epoxy that is larger than the rod. So a 1/4" rod in a 1/2" hole, but even a 3/8" hole would be pretty good. The fact you are considering pins is acceptance of the fact that the joint will fail, and it probably will. Dowels fail indoors. 100%, eventually. Hardware bonds ensure that the epoxy pocket is fully bonded to the surrounds of the pocket, which is not always the case when a tightly fitted dowel is shoved in there. This is the technology that is used to hang wind turbine blades. Lots of threaded studs.

If you concluded that a 1/4" stud was stiff enough and strong enough to work in your application, then you will not have anything like the bonding strength to wood if you bond it in a 1/4" hole. It is some required multiple, like 3 times the diameter of the stud, I forget. But in furniture applications I have used, one does not normally need the full strength. An extra 1/8" all around is ample, or 1/16" in lighter applications.

This process can make the job easier, because perfect accuracy is not necessary to get the bond, and you can often align parts separately. But you generally don't have the assist of dowels holding as you assemble. There are all kinds of options, but the work flow is certainly different.

I live in TO also, and it is tough on outdoor furniture, so the dowels may last long enough. I made this painted pine bench that was modeled after something from a hotel in Muskoka. Barely got 10 years out of it.

Re: Best glue for an outdoor cedar chair

Barry Irby

I laminated treated lumber into arches using 3M 5200 Marine Adhesive. Built a pedestrian bridge and another large enough for my friend to drive his tractor across. Over twenty years later they still use them.

Very slow setting. I see now they have a fast set option.

I also built a giant gazebo(?). Twelve foot diameter circle with six arches springing to the center. (The finial was forty inches tall.) It was all redwood and glued with Gorilla glue. Fifteen years later its still sound. Man is that foaming Gorilla glue messy.

When I was building I used a ton of PL400 and PL500. Wonderful stuff and might work well for you.

In spite of all that I think I like TomD's idea.

Re: Best glue for an outdoor cedar chair

William Duffield

For deeper analysis of Tom's recommendations, ask Google to search for "Gougeon hardware bonding"