What type of glue for a workbench?

[Ttrees]

Personally I think it would be nice to know which might be the best choice,
should it have the life which this poor bench has endured.

 

[Henniep]

Cascamite is excellent and justified for outdoor applications. PVC glues are fine for internal use. Would cascamite be more expensive than PCV glues in your country?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Cascamite is only just recovering (allegedly) from quality issues.

 

[Mark Karacsonyi]

As long as you have good mating joints any glue should suffice, if there are no damp concerns. I was a convert to Titebond some years ago, not looked back.

 

[Ttrees]

As long as you have good mating joints any glue should suffice, if there are no damp concerns. I was a convert to Titebond some years ago, not looked back.

From regular PVA, or from cascamite?

 

[Mark Karacsonyi]

From regular PVA, or from cascamite?

From both, never had a need for cascamite, after my joints improved, eliminating the gaps.

 

[Chip shop]

The lads in the W/S next door swear by whatever brand of PU the rep is punting out this week. I despise the stuff and tend to use PVA for everything - don't think I've ever had a failure regardless of brand.

 

[bp122]

All valid points shared out of experience, but I'm still not sure which one to use.

The Cascamite that people have used decades so may have been great, but it is the recent press I'm worried about.

Actually, while writing this I may have made up my mind. I would like to try it at some point in the future, not during the biggest build of my life. I could do with as fewer distractions and frustrations as possible (some are inevitable i suppose)

Titebond3 has been rated well here and elsewhere, but it is twice the price of some of the others and not seem to be in stock in the large bottle.

I'll see if Axminster have it in their high Wycombe store when I return the Cascamite. If not, I'll get a pair of clamps or something and look for it elsewhere.

If not, I'll go with evostick / everbuild.

I was worried about the PVA's short time for the table top for up. For the legs etc, I'm not that worried as they are much smaller.

 

[eribaMotters]

Nothing wrong with Cascamite, it's just messy, you have to mix it, sometimes have waste, it's brittle, etc.
For me though it's another vote for Titebond 3 and a few biscuits to align things. High tack, good open time, resistant to creep, waterproof, perfect.

Colin

 

[Lignumvitae]

Hi All,
New member whose been enjoying the daily posts and level of expertise and camaraderie. Thank you everyone.
On glues I thought I would add an old Parker Knoll trick. Where frames built in High Wycombe were for export, particularly to hot countries, glues had to be used to withstand high humidity, heat and insects. I can't for the life of me remember whether it was Cascamite or Aerolite used. Maybe both depending on market. However it was established early on that the dynamic forces put on various chair joints could not be withstood due to brittleness in these glues. The answer, believe it or not was to add PVA. Scratching my head to remember how much. 2% comes to mind. If I am missing a nought, 20% sounds too much. From memory this had been established by trial and error not science but happy to be corrected on that bit of history. The shop floor wisdom was that the PVA molecular chains added elasticity to the joint. All I can say is that there were no cases of joint failure after that. Hope someone finds this of interest.
Thanks again for a great forum.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I would imagine Aerolite probably would stand the flexing as it was specifically developed for wooden aircraft frames ..............which are hardly rigid, though central heating doesn't rear its ugly head there. I have repaired dozens of chairs glued with (probably cheap) urea formaldehyde adhesives that had shattered, although of course this was in centrally heated environments.

 

[thetyreman]

I just use PVA for everything now, wudcare, I deliberately never use titebond because it's about 3 x more expensive, sometimes I use everbuild D4 usually for outdoor stuff.

 

[Ttrees]

The regular titebond seems similarly priced to say everbuild (cheapest I've seen)
if buying by the gallon, and certainly cheaper than evo stick, (double the cost of everbuild) where I get it.
Maybe I need to shop around though?

 

[bp122]

Am I looking at the wrong thing?

I have seen everbuild 502 5 litre is for about £30 at Toolstation, £22 change on Amazon while Evostick 5 litre is only £13 at Toolstation. How is that more expensive? Unless I'm looking at the wrong product?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

It's a sealant, a different product. How well it would work I don't know. Resin W is £60 - £70 per 5ltr.

Incidentally, don't buy more than you can use in a few months - it degrades quite quickly, D4 quicker than standard PVA. Toolstation usually list 502 in litres but not at the moment. Don't let it get too cold.

 

[thetyreman]

https://www.rustins.ltd/wudcare/our-products/wudcare-adhesives/pva-waterproof-wood-adhesive

 

[bp122]

This brings another couple of questions to my mind:

1. For a 600mm X 1800mm workbench with laminated top and legs and all the joints, how much glue is required (even with the heaviest of glue spreading above average). Quite a few people have built a bench in the last few years, so I'm hoping for an estimate. I reckon 2 litres, but I suspect I might be underestimating it.

2. Spreading glue: old fashioned and use the fingers / slotted credit card / fancy glue applicator (small funnel and a roller) / just wave around the nozzle and not bother spreading it etc... ?

 

[Droogs]

My last bench build was a rouboesque one and is 2.4 x 1m made from laminated maple 40x25mm laminations and redwood frame and I use just over a bottle of 502
edit

oh and I used a lidl silicon icing spreader on a stick thingy to spread the glue and on many occasions forgot i had that and used my finger

 

[Cabinetman]

It probably isn’t a good idea to try and glue the whole top together in one go, so you are unlikely to run out halfway through the job, in my wildest imaginings I can’t think that you would need more than a litre of Resin W for the whole bench, personally I hardly ever use a spreader, run up and down leaving a bead with gaps between then rub the two bits of wood against each other.
You will find it much easier if you buy a small blue Resin W as well then just top that up from the big 1ltr bottle. You need a lot of stamina to squeeze a big bottle all the time. Ian

 

[Ttrees]

Agreed, those squeezy nozzles are absolutely brutal on the fingers.
I decant into a suitably sized dettol bottle, as I often put the squeeze out back in.