Boing Boing: I recently needed to glue wood together in a real hurry and tried a product called RapidFuse that didn't do too well. Annoyed, I decided to look for tests of the zillion wood glues now available so I could find something with a 15-minute set that works. It turns out I'm asking too much
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When I first opened this article I was surprised at how small in length this article was, but then I watched the video where the man described all the data, but then oh boy then I opened the google sheet that had all the data in it and wow my jaw dropped. I Data collection and data analysis is not my strong suit, but I can visually see how much data they have collected and I can only imagine how much time this took them, so hats off to that. I do find it surprising that cheap super glue was the top glue for long grain to long grain wood bonding. I wonder why an actual wood glue is not even in second or third place. This also makes me wonder why in our scene shop and most scene shops Titebond is used. We really could just be balling out here full sets built with super glue.
This is a really interesting experiment that certainly yields surprising results across the board. I we often don't think about the wood glue that we use, to the point where there are currently three different types of wood glue in the tool room right now being used to fill our glue bottles. Nevertheless, while the video and data are incredibly useful, there are certainly many other factors that come into play when selecting a glue. Other mechanical properties such as fracture toughness or yield strength may have just as important of a role as ultimate strength. Superglue may have a higher ultimate strength, but it is also known to be extremely brittle. Another consideration is work-ability. In our shops, it is useful to run glued up pieces through saws, planers, jointers, and CNCs without much thought. Other adhesives are not so friendly on our tools, or may even require special tooling. Additionally, how much time do you need to be able to work the piece before the glue starts to set? I would find it frustrating if a glue set on the framing of a flat before I had the chance to square it up with the facing. Finally, I'm surprised there wasn't a cost per unit volume associated with each glue. Even though superglue can be a dollar for one of those small tubes, the cost to get up to a gallon of it when Titebond II is under $20 is another major consideration. It is really useful to have this information, but I'm going to need some more information before I switch away from plain old yellow woodglue.
I really enjoyed taking an inside look at these different kinds of glues. If I am being perfectly honest, I was on the edge of my seat the entire time to see what kinds of glues would set the fastest, according to their times posted on their packaging, of course. The results were surprising to me, as I was expecting more glues to list accurate set times, and this was often not the case entirely. What I did appreciate was the effort that the video maker put into quantifying the evidence between all the different kinds of glues and adhesives that he tested. It’s a really thorough and well thought out experiment and it was actually more interesting than I thought it would be initially. We all see these kinds of products out and about and have often used them in our homes for home improvement reasons or DIY projects, so I am glad to be a little more informed than I was previously. Maybe it will help my decisions in the future.
In this head to head experiment with wood glue, I certainly went into the video with my own expectations that were very quickly proven wrong. Wood glue is something that, for standard scenery construction, is not something most people put a lot of thought into. With this being said, however, I do find myself having a preference in brand with very little reason behind it. While I do not think I will ever see the day where carpenters are gluing keystones and corner blocks onto a flat with superglue from the dollar store, this video started making me consider, why not? The primary function of glue is to resist shear forces but when considering glue for scenery construction, you also need something that can handle the compressive and tensile forces when moving scenery which is where I can see superglue failing due to its brittleness. Titebond II is my personal go-to when it comes to wood glue because of its versatility. It is a great adhesive for long grain to long grain and can even span certain gaps as long as there is enough surface area for the forces to be distributed enough.
I have to say I was surprised by the results of this test as well as was really enlightened on the complexities of wood glue. I guess I had always assumed that you buy the brands you've actually heard of and ignore everything else. I was also not aware that the type of wood glue used could be more or less effective against wear. (Indoors or Outdoors) Wood glue is wood glue, right? Apparently wrong. Like JD said, rather comically I might add, it was strangely engaging and interesting to see the results of the test. You wouldn't expect anyone to make watching a video comparison of wood glues interesting but somehow he really did. The other comments on this post were also very interesting to peruse and see what others had to say about there previous views and their equally surprised enlightening (and in some cases, continuing skepticism) of this new portrayal of wood glue.
I’ve never thought about the fact that there are different brands/types of wood glue and that they probably perform differently. I also had no idea that there were so many different types of wood glue to begin with. Also the fact that they tested 4 different kinds of gluing with 64 different types of wood is a pretty dedicated experiment. I feel like though we generally just stick to one brand because it’s either cheaper, easier to access, or just simply what we’re used to using. I found it kind of amusing that the best kind of wood glue for indoor woodworking was an Elmer’s glue. I suppose I never thought that a company that makes child safe glue would also make one of the top wood glues. With all of the different kinds of weird things we like to do in theatre with our various tools for doing so, this information will probably come in handy later on for reference.
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