Thread: Need advice on a good wood glue

Hello All,

I have a very large bucket of exotic woods about 2”x 2”x1/4” . I want to turn them but was wondering if someone could recommend a good glue to use. In years past I used a boat glue that I mixed up with water and used an electric setting gun to cure with. The setting gun was much like a taser today. About 6 moves later I can not find the name of the glue or the setting gun.


On to today’s problem, any idea of a all around wood glue that will bond lets say coco bola to Purple heart and still take a turning?

Thanks in advance

Do the joints need to be water proof?
It makes a huge difference in what kinds of glue are acceptable.
Jody

2 comp epoxy , It's marine-graded and bonds and coats fiberglass, wood, metal, fabrics and other composite materials

and suuuuper strong

I guess the quick answer is yes. I do want to use some in brushes. I have all kinds to play with and just don't want to blow them apart

School glue (Elmer's school glue) is strong on wood, BUT it may not be water proof.
Wood glue is similar - do not know if standard wood glue is water proof....

With either of the above, I would think you could turn the wood on a lathe (I presume that is what you mean to do). But it may not be good with water.

Epoxy is definetly going to be ok with water.
I vote for 2-part Epoxy (not the quick set kind).

Jody

2 part epoxy but also dowel them.

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

2 part epoxy but also dowel them.

The dowel was in the plan, Thank you for reconfirming that. Do you have a go to glue you would share?

Originally Posted by hidestoart

The dowel was in the plan, Thank you for reconfirming that. Do you have a go to glue you would share?

I use loctite two part epoxy but I think all epoxys are about the same.

Titebond waterproof wood glue at Lowes

Everything does well with 2 part epoxy. My opinion is that two part epoxy is 'best' for the oily woods (cocobolo etc). Having said that, I've never had a failure with Titebond.

Epoxy is also very good for watery environments, as is Titebond III. Titebond III is cheaper, epoxy will not leave a differentially colored seam. All glues will leave a seam while turning. My suggestion with cocobolo is to add no more than 10% of black colorant to epoxy. This makes the glue seam look like black cocobolo grain. This assumes that you are lining up the grain in the halves parallel to the glue seam. I have used both carbon black and black dye powder successfully.

Don't take this the wrong way but.....if you are concerned about your blank blowing apart, your turning technique is poor. Three possibilities here:

1. You are not adequately sharpening your tools, or not sharpening them frequently enough.
2. You are using poor gluing technique. "Poor" includes inadequately jointing the two halves, inadaquately smoothing two halves, and/or improperly clamping the two halves. Note that PVA (titebond) wants very high clamping pressure, while epoxy requires "solid" clamping pressure, but not so much as to drive out all the glue.
3. Your gouge/skew technique is poor and you are either catching, scraping out large chunks rather than cutting, or both. Maybe you are using a tool/grind for facing operations that should only be used for spindle turning. DVD's by Bill Grumbine are your friend.

Note that one of the spectacular ways to explode a blank is to use dowels to put together two halves of a spindle, and then turn the spindle down with a skew until you encounter the endgrain of a dowel...and then KAPOW!!!

If you are consistently having glue line failure on your blanks it could be because you are using a drive cone and/or a live/dead center tail cone (or point) and are using too much pressure on the tailstock. Your cone(s) are being converted into splitting wedges. This tends to happen when an inexperienced turner uses a spur drive and has a catch. The spur gouges out a path in the blank, and loses the ability to drive. The user then tightens up the tailstock to get the spur to drive again, and in the process puts 'splitting' force into the glue seam. A person who will catch once, will catch again, and do the same thing again, and eventually split the blank.

A light, aware touch, even during roughing, is the road to turning nirvana. Trying to use mechanical means (such as dowels) to make up for unpracticed technique, is the road to hell. I've been down both...