5 tips for better glue-ups.

new woodworkers are often surprised at how important glue is for woodworking I use wood glue on every project I make here are a few techniques to consider on your next project and just so you know tight bond is not a sponsor or compensating me anyway for this video it's just the glue that I've used for years and that I recommend if you're interested in learning that woodworking for mere mortals method of woodworking head on over to the weekend woodworker comm where you can get all of the info on my step-by-step approach that will have you building your first project of this weekend no experience necessary and be sure to download my free guide to setting up a shop for under $1000 for most of us no matter how careful we are making accurate cuts and assembling our projects cracks and gaps are inevitable pieces just don't always fit together perfectly except for maybe you Daniel mr. my miter joints are always perfect yeah you could buy wood putty to fill in those gaps but the color never seems to match and hey why pay thousands of dollars on a can of putty that's just gonna dry up anyway when you can make your own wood filler first you're gonna want to sand your project with a sander that has its own dust collection dump out the sanding dust and mix it with some glue until it's a putty consistency then spread it into the gaps with a putty knife [Music] about the only place where wood glue alone isn't very effective is on the end grain of boards this is the direction that the tree grows and the fibers of the woods soak up moisture and nutrients for the tree to grow so that we can cut them down in grain is also notorious for sucking up glue like a bunch of straws and it just simply starves a joint of glue but keep in mind the context of your project and how it will be used not every joint needs to pass a strength test if you're making say a small jewelry box to withstand jumping on it you might have over built it same goes for a lot of picture frames and other decorative projects in these cases gluing the end grain is often perfectly acceptable and strong enough but you want to prepare the end grain by sizing it sizing is basically just a wash coat of glue to fill in the pores of the wood before gluing the pieces together there's a couple different techniques you can use my favorite is to just apply some glue to the end grain and just pack it in with my finger you might be surprised how much glue that ends will absorb let that sit for a few minutes and then glue the pieces together a traditional technique is to thin some wood glue down half at half with water and brush it onto the end grain let it sit for 15 minutes then glue up the pieces normally the idea here is that the thin glue will soak into the end grain and fill it up better than using it full strength keep in mind the tight bond website says that thinning their glue any more than 5% will reduce its bond strength but the sizing isn't meant to be bonding the wood together and yet another school of thought says that thinning the glue is a complete waste of time and you can just apply a coat of full strength glue and let it dry for about 15 minutes this makes sense since glue is almost half water anyways it should soak into that in but really I'd like to see somebody do a side-by-side test of all three of these sizing techniques and see if there's any difference ultimately I believe any method of sizing is gonna be stronger than just trying to glue in grain without it heat and humidity play a big factor where I live the weather is relatively dry and warmish most of the year wood glue dries pretty fast under these conditions but when we get into the rainy season December January I definitely noticed that the glue takes longer to dry but don't worry high humidity won't affect the strength of the bond but I think temperature is the bigger concern according to Franklin international tight bond two needs to be used at temperatures above 55 degrees Fahrenheit tight bond three can be used all the way down to 47 degrees Fahrenheit so if you live in a cold unheated shop wood glue might not be as effective the problem is that the glue gets thicker in the cold and it won't get into the pores of the wood as well causing a weaker joint or one that just takes a lot longer to dry and even if you keep the glue say in your warm house applying it to a cold board can also reduce its effectiveness but then again I can't imagine it being very comfortable to work in a freezing cold shop in say Minnesota anyway so consider getting a heater oh and by the way if your wood glue freezes don't worry just let it thaw out tight bond says that it can undergo five cycles of freezing and thawing before it starts to lose its effectiveness [Music] you might be surprised that you don't have to wait as long as you think for wood glue to drive given ideal weather conditions you can unclamp your glue in 30 to 60 minutes but keep in mind the joint isn't fully cured at this point it's it's still marinating and that just means that you shouldn't apply these stress to the joint for about another 24 hours or so but this is fine because it allows you to keep moving with your project rather than having to wait 24 hours before unclamping every step of an assembly I would just take forever to build a project if you had to work that way I don't actually time any of my glue ups because I've usually got other tasks to perform after I've clamped something together and and then I just unclamped them whenever I'm ready honestly wood glue is pretty amazing and on hot dry days I've done clamped glue ups in say 20 or 25 minutes especially on small projects and it worked out just fine as a general observation it seems to me glue cures completely overnight 24 hours seems a little excessive but I'm no chemist one of the most frustrating things when gluing boards together is having them slip out of alignment when you apply clamping pressure this is especially common on face-to-face laminations the glue basically acts as a lubricant an old tiny woodworking trick is to add salt to the joint to prevent slipping yeah I know right now there's there's a guy leaving a salty comment down below about how he's used gritty glue for years and I just don't use the right brand of salt or something but honestly I've tried this technique in it I didn't notice that it really did anything but hey if you like high sodium glue go for it tight bond doesn't recommend adding salt to their product stating that it can react with the wood glue and alter its composition resulting in a weakened joint and there's some woodworkers who claim that sprinkling some fine sand on a joint works even better [Applause] another technique I've seen some woodworkers advocate is to add small Brad's to the boards just tack a few in and cut off the heads that way you can tap the board's into position they won't slide side to side I suppose this will work as long as you keep the Brad's short there won't be much room for adjustment once you've committed to pounding the board in place this technique just seems like a hassle and not really worth the effort so here's the less than exciting method I use for preventing slipping boards when gluing boards spread the glue outs in and evenly to one wood surface not both press the boards together and slide them back and forth until you feel them grabbed align them however you want and let them sit for a couple of minutes to kind of take hold then start to put your clamps on apply even clamping pressure among all of the clamps you do just a little bit at a time to each one evenly if you apply full clamping pressure to just one clamp the boards will live I'm surprised there's really not much of a trick there that's all there is and if possible consider making your lamination is just a little oversized and cutting them down and squaring them up after the glue is dry I do this all the time and I don't have to worry about getting all of the edges of the glue up perfectly aligned thanks for watching everybody [Music] you

Channel: Steve Ramsey - Woodworking for Mere Mortals

Views: 231,211

Rating: 4.9098315 out of 5

Keywords: woodworking, woodworking project, how-to, DIY, easy woodworking, steve ramsey, WWMM, Mere Mortals, The Weekend Woodworker, woodworking plans, Free plans, wood, making, building, makers, hobby, weekend projects, Weekend Woodworker, power tools, adhesive, glue, tips and tricks, woodworking hacks

Id: mEiCrG0wvnI

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 06 2020