White House Workshop
Established Member
I did a search but couldn't find too much on this topic - except it's not advised and isn't strong! That's what my woodworking books say, too, particularly one I have called 'The Joint Book' by Noll.
However, I have been glueing end grain to end grain a lot in order to get nice grain matches around corners, rectangular or otherwise. The only failure I had was end grain to cross grain, for obvious reasons. I've used several glues, depending on the size of joint/stock and the stresses the joint will need to take. I've glued small trinket boxes' corners with PVA and none of the joints have failed; even a large-ish box about 9" square and 10" deep has held for 10 years so far, and it gets a lot of mistreatment from the grandkids!
Recently I've been matching grain patterns across some quite obtuse angles, e.g. 160 degrees, and the stock is mostly half inch. For these I've been using slow setting epoxy (Araldite). It can be messy, especially with squeeze out, but careful use of a sharp chisel and cabinet scraper removes it quite well when it's in the inbetween setting stage - hard enough to hold the joint, but still soft enough to cut/scrape off the wood. I haven't had any problems with the glue soaking in and the wood has taken an even finish 24 hours later with no blotchiness. I did miss one tiny bit on the underside of a joint and by the time it was really set I had to file it off!
The big advantage of this simple joint is the ease of preparation. No fancy cutting, just careful set-up to get the right angle. If the saw blade polishes the cut (happens a lot on cherry, for example) I simply take a sharp point and scratch both surfaces to be jointed - that way I don't change the angle or dimensions. I invariably scratch the joint if I'm using PVA, but tried an epoxied test joint without scratching and it wouldn't break even by jumping on it - hurt my heel in fact!
The only end grain joints I've had fail on me have been really small cross-section framing, so I'm not really surprised in those cases. My own fault for not reinforcing them - and using the wrong glue?
However, I have been glueing end grain to end grain a lot in order to get nice grain matches around corners, rectangular or otherwise. The only failure I had was end grain to cross grain, for obvious reasons. I've used several glues, depending on the size of joint/stock and the stresses the joint will need to take. I've glued small trinket boxes' corners with PVA and none of the joints have failed; even a large-ish box about 9" square and 10" deep has held for 10 years so far, and it gets a lot of mistreatment from the grandkids!
Recently I've been matching grain patterns across some quite obtuse angles, e.g. 160 degrees, and the stock is mostly half inch. For these I've been using slow setting epoxy (Araldite). It can be messy, especially with squeeze out, but careful use of a sharp chisel and cabinet scraper removes it quite well when it's in the inbetween setting stage - hard enough to hold the joint, but still soft enough to cut/scrape off the wood. I haven't had any problems with the glue soaking in and the wood has taken an even finish 24 hours later with no blotchiness. I did miss one tiny bit on the underside of a joint and by the time it was really set I had to file it off!
The big advantage of this simple joint is the ease of preparation. No fancy cutting, just careful set-up to get the right angle. If the saw blade polishes the cut (happens a lot on cherry, for example) I simply take a sharp point and scratch both surfaces to be jointed - that way I don't change the angle or dimensions. I invariably scratch the joint if I'm using PVA, but tried an epoxied test joint without scratching and it wouldn't break even by jumping on it - hurt my heel in fact!
The only end grain joints I've had fail on me have been really small cross-section framing, so I'm not really surprised in those cases. My own fault for not reinforcing them - and using the wrong glue?
