I’m starting to cut parts for a dining room chair. All joints will be pinned mortise and tennon. Most of the furniture that I’ve built has been glued with titebond’s original wood glue or titebond’s liquid hide glue. I have experimented with almost all types of glues but never in a joint that take the abuse that exist in chair joints.
Chairs in my home take considerable abuse. Leaning back on the chairs, large people, ect… My chair experience is limited and therefore don’t have a personal long term history of how glued joints hold up in chairs over time.
With the improvement in glue technology over the past couple of decades, I was wondering what others use for glues in their chair joints. Even stories about glue failure in chair joints would be appreciated.
Thank you.
Scott
Replies
If your joints are proper and the chair well designed Titebond will work fine. Keep your rear legs far enough back and people will have a harder time leaning back.
If your joints are soft then a gapfiller like polyurethene will be your friend. Better to fix the fit of the joint.
If the chair is heirloom then hide glue, so it can be repaired every lifetime or so without destroying the thing.
Good topic.
I am thinking about hide glue more often. I use titebond 2 and 3 think there great.
Now I see titebond instant set, I have used such systems in the shoe repair trade and the "acceleraters" were labeled and demonstrated nasty stuff.
Well what does I guy do move up the chemical line or step back a few years?
I do not believe that polyurethane glue has any gap filling capability. The foam that oozes out of butt joints is the same as what is inside an interior gap-it can be picked apart with a fingrnail.
For gap filling with no creep I think epoxy is the best bet. This does not flex, so I have read some comments that it is a poor choice for chairs.
Pete
You know, I never looked into that issue closely.Just knew it was "gap filling" but didn't check to see how the joint strength is affected when it does this.I've always just repaired a joint if I cut it too soft, the mess I've heard of from poly glue has kept me from using it. Thanks for the added info.
I do furniture restoration and can testify of the reversibility of hide glue. And I built a Writing Arm Windsor with my brother last summer and can testify to the marvelous construction and durability of these chairs. But what I really love about hide glue is any squeeze out can be wiped off easily with a warm wet rag, even after it dries, and it doesn't stain or show up after finishing. Makes finishing a breeze!
So I want to try hide glue. Are the new liquid glues as good as the old doubler boiler type?
I don't make many chairs, but here's what I've learned from reading & speaking with various experts -- chair joints are among the most stressed woodworking joints there are. Not only do you have to deal with the live loads associated with chair use, but the joints are adversely affected by seasonal movements. (This is particularly evident in round tenons where the part repeatedly shifts from round to oval as the wood moves seasonally.) The sum effect of all this is that you can pretty much count on a lot of chair joints failing over time. When they do fail, joints made with hide glue are much easier to repair. Hide glue simply softens with heat so the joints can be easily disassembled and re-glued. It does have some joint-filling capabilities, and it allows the joint to move more without failure.
That said, when I have made chairs, I used TBII. (That's what was on the shelf.) No problems yet.
As an aside, IMHO, the most elegant solution to the problems inherent in chair joinery has been solved by the makers of Windsor chairs. Through the use of dissimilar woods, tapered sockets and steam bending, these chair joints are designed to actually get tighter with use, and seem to be capable of withstanding years of use and abuse.
Mike Hennessy
Pittsburgh, PA
Mike,
No quarrel with anything you said, except, (there's always one isn't there?) for your contention that hide glue will move with the joint. Regular hide glue is quite brittle when dry, and it tendency to crystallise makes it less than ideal for filling gaps. Its brittleness and non shock resistance make it easy to simply knock a glue block loose with a sharp rap with a hammer, for instance. Still, for antique repair it is the best choice by far, when it can be used. And I won't argue with anyone using hide glue for new work simply because it is so easily repairable.
That said, I use titebond carpenters glue for nearly all my new work, chairs included. Its frequently cited drawback, that it doesn't dry "hard", lends itself well to the demands of chair joinery, imo.
Ray
Quarrel away! Like I said, everything I "know" about hide glue is from reading, so it's always good to get another point of view.
I've never been set up to use hide glue, but that's about to change since an acoustic guitar is rising fast on my "to do" list. After that, perhaps I'll be able to speak from experience. ;-)
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Mike,
Just had a conversation with a luthier, who said the reason hide glue is used in constructing musical instruments is for its rigidity which is a good thing accoustically, (titebond=bad) as well as its easy repairability.
Ray
I knew TB was bad for musical instruments since it has high creep -- i.e., joints under stress move over time in the direction of the stress. Also, one cardinal rule for luthiers is never do anything that can't be undone. Hide glue obviously fits this commandment well.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Hey Mike and others,
Thank you very much for your comments. I have decided to use Titebond's liquid hide glue on my chairs. I believe that all joints will eventually fail. It may take 100 years but the combination of seasonal movement and humidity will ultimately cause the joints to fail. Liquid hide glue is my choice since I have used hide glue chips in a double boiler set-up before and it's just much simpler to squeeze the bottle. Also if the chairs need to be repaired, disassembly will be easy.
With that said, theoretically speaking, I shouldn't need to glue the joints at all. All my tenons are dried with a hair dryer to a lower moisture content and machined within .003" of the mortise opening after drying. The pins are dried in an oven. The pin hole in the chair is located slightly offset from the hole in the tennon so that when the pin is inserted, the stretchers are pulled tight against the legs and the pin will be slightly compressed. When the moisture content eventually equalizes, the joints are essentially a pressed fit. Very tight and extremely strong. I use the glue to hold the pins in place and DELAY the inevatable seasonal compression of the wood at the joints. I havn't seen my chair joints loosen up in my lifetime, by I have experienced problems with wood movement. I built a table top last month and the leaves grew at a different rate than the main top and the pins no longer lined up. Bummer!
I wanted to make one comment about Titebond's liquide hide glue. There is a shelf life. Especially after you open the bottle. Unlike some of their other glues, the hide glue bottle has a experation date stamped on it. Note this date if you are purchasing some, as many times the glue can sit on the shelf and be expired before you buy it. I don't know if the expired glue still works, so I kept a bottle with a June of 2005 experation date on it. I just checked and it still looks ok. I plan to use it on test peices for a few years yet or until it solidifies just to see what happens.
Thanks again for your comments. I really appreciate the insight.
Scott
I use hide glue, either liquid or hot, on everything except outdoor projects. It dries hard, doesn't creep, takes stain and is reversable. Make sure your m&t joints are a push fit (it should take a little effort to put them together) and drill tour peg holes all the way through and don't glue them.
Dick
Scott,I use and like Titebond's liquid hide glue. I have yet to try Patrick Edwards' Old Brown Glue. But Titebond's version is good stuff, but much tackier than regular PVA glues. Good or bad?Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Hi there Chris,
I have seen you respond to so many questions and comments. It's good to finally get to chat with you.
I'm not sure what you mean by good or bad, but here goes. Hide glue has double the assembly time that pva does and that's good for me. I have heard that the chemical in the glue that allows it to remain liquid also prevents it from drying completely. Therefore you don't get the really hard brittle glue that you would from melting chips. I don't see this as a problem in my chairs, but for laminated bends or musical instruments, you may want to think twice.
If you warm up the hide glue, parts slide around quite well ( in a good way). I really like the hide glue because any squeeze out is easy to take care of and won't effect the finish. I used to use titebond's pva with a flourescent addative. You could detect any problem spots on a work piece by shining a black light on it and the glue spots would show up as purple. That way you could eliminate them before you found them in the staining process. Remember the black lights and posters of the 70's. The same thing. With hide glue you don't even have to worry about it.
Scott
Hi Scott,Referring to the tackiness of the glue, good would be that the glue does hold the work together. Bad would be that if it gets on your fingers (which of course is does), you really have to be careful what you touch. I have never heard that hide glue doesn't fully cure and am skeptical. The reason I decided to try hide glue is that my least favorite part about woodworking (even more than SANDING!) is removing glue squeeze-out from inside a corner.I had seen ads for the fluorescent glue, but never saw it in stores. Kind of like CSI, eh?I did some quick research on Titebond's website and found some surprising information on their Liquid Hide glue.
1) It's listed open working time is only 10-20 minutes. For comparison, the PVA glue I use, 2002GF, has an open time of 15-20 minutes
2) It can be cleaned up with water when either WET or DRY. I know that hide glue has a low resistance to water but didn't realize that squeeze out can be cleaned with water after. Whether it means vigorous scrubbing with a toothbrush and water or just a damp cloth, I don't know.
3) "exceptional strength, long open assembly time and superior creep resistance"Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
I use hot water and a rag, vigorously rub the dried hide glue and it will come off and it doesn't mater if it gets diluted into the wood because it just won't show thought your stain or finish!
Hi Chris,
I sent an email off to the technical service at Titebond to get the low down its liquid hide glue. I asked about the addatives in the glue and if they will reduce creep resistance and hardness of the glue when it cures.
I did a presentation on glues at our local workworkers association last year. I took a couple of months and experimented with every type of glue that I had heard of and could find. It was actually fun and I learned a great deal. I did change some things that I do after running these tests. I let the temperatures of the glues and woods equalize to temperature above the chalk temperatures of the glue. I was doing glue ups in my basement and found a number of joints failing because my basement temperature ranged from 45-55 degrees F. I now either turn the heat on ahead of time in the shop or bring very small glue ups upstairs. The ureaformeldahyde unibond 800 was esspecially bad for this. Some of the guys said that they wrap their projects in a heating blanket while letting the glues dry. Before I did the experiment, I was a one glue guy. Afterwards, I realized that there is a proper glue for each circumstance and you really should pick the one that best suits the situation.
I now have many different types of glues in my arsenal. One that I find myself using alot these days is cyanoacrylate (super glue). I have 3 different viscosities, accelerants, debonders, applicators,etc.. I use it to repair splinters on boards, etc...Just select the vicosity that will wick the best and press it on with your hand and in 10 seconds the repair is done.
Scott
"Just select the vicosity that will wick the best and press it on with your hand and in 10 seconds the repair is done."
And your hand is glued firmly to the board! LOL! Ah, the practical joke region of my brain is starting to formulate some interesting scenarios. ;-)
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Mike,I fixed something two weeks ago with Hot Stuff and set it down to cure on the table while I cleaned the bit of glue on my hands. When I went to check on my glue up, I found it stuck to the table. Good thing it wasn't a nice looking table.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Ray & Mike,I will attest to Titebond's non-rigid glue line. I glued the head back onto the neck of an electric guitar and it doesn't hold a tune like it used to.Chris @ http://www.flairwoodwork.spaces.live.com(soon to be http://www.flairwoodworks.com)
- Success is not the key to happines. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful. - Albert Schweitzer
Woodmaster:
I have made perhaps 8 chairs now (maloof rockers and windsors). My glue of choice is epoxy. I would like to say that every joint is a perfect fit, but it is not. I use epoxy because it dries hard; it is gap filling, and has a fairly long open period. It works for me. Good luck. pmm
I've rebuilt/restored a couple of hundred chairs over the years. Except for certain types of "engineered chairs" like Windsors, plan on "tuning up" a well used chair periodically. That means using a glue that is reversible. Epoxies, polyurethane and the like and not reversible with safe woodworking techniques (soaking a joint in epoxy thinner is not a typical woodworking technique!). When I get a chair with any of the no-no glues, my rate goes up considerably.
I use 2002GF from Lee Valley - a higher viscosity pva glue with some wood dust for minimal gap filling capability (the GF in the name). It has excellent mechanical properties, has a reasonable open time and is reversible.
All chair joints should have a reasonably tight mechanical connection. When I find a loose joint, I take some oak veneer, soak it in glue and wrap it around the tenon. Once dry, I file/sand it to an nice snug fit for assembly gluing.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled