I am building a small case piece from SYP that spent the past 100+ years as factory rafters in Brooklyn. The wood is so baked dry that the sap is set to the point of almost being amber but the content is high enough that you can see orange light through 1/4″ thick cutoffs.
Stock is 1 3/8″ thick and I’m using a combo of dovetail / wedged through M&T construction. What experiences have you had using Yellow, epoxy, polyurethane, or urea-formaldahyde glues on this type of “waxy-surface” lumber? I am trying to narrow the candidates for testing.
Second photo is a flashlight standing on top of the stock shining into it.
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When we glue up teak, which has a tremendous amount of oil in it, and becomes almost slippery after milling, we have had great results with both polyurethane glues, as well as resorcinol. A bit of moisture added to the opposing surface to be glued helps the polyurethane glue bind really well. This has been for mostly exterior architectural millwork, so it gets lots of exposure, so for interior work, I'm sure it would do the job more than adequately. I'm not sure I would use a PVA glue with something with so much crystallized sap in it.
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