Thread: Less smelly Glues for weight and veneer?

Least smelly glue....would not include a hide glue...many have a rather horrible smell!

The major advantage of hide glue is that it has a short open time (minutes) and it is about the only glue that sticks really well to itself without surface preparation, so you can re-glue it with almost no effort. It can also be removed fairly easily (hot water, steam), whereas everything else needs mechanical means.

If you want a guranteed 'no lingering smell' glue, I'd use a decent epoxy (by decent, I mean one that is not diluted by solvents, so get a marine grade one) - once it's cured, it's pretty much inert. You can also be guaranteed that no cute little epoxy-amines died to get you your tube!

Wood to wood, PVA is probably the easiest to work with, but wood to a weight (metal, I presume) would have me reaching for the epoxy.

Originally Posted by Master Splinter

Least smelly glue....would not include a hide glue...many have a rather horrible smell.

Hi Joanna,

That used to be the case but thankfully they have de-odorized it. Basically it is the same elements as gelatin, I have used it for over 15 years and love it.

Word of caution if you allow it to get old or leave it wet and un-heated for a period of time 2 days plus it will putrefy and stink! but if it's heated and used as directed it is almost zero small and works very well.


Cheers

Steve

Originally Posted by toolbagsPLUS

2 days plus...

....gee, I'd never do that, I mean, I'd never go into to the shed the next weekend and wonder what died and where it had crawled too, nooooo, never.......

seriously Joanna......unless you are going to work exclusivly in hoop or radiata pine and PVA ya better get used to a few smells.

At least 2/3 of the timbers are smellier and more dangerous than many of the glues....google " bad woods"

Standard PVA is posibly the safest and least toxic glue we have...it is more or less non toxic in all forms..... but it has limitations.

If you move up into some of the higher order PVA products like the alaphalactic resin PVAs ( yellow glues AVS AV180), and the crosslinked resin PVAs they are more water resistant, have better strength and faster drying..and don't smell much and are pretty damn safe.

But almost all glues we have that actually work have some strong chemical heritage and thus either smell or have some undesirable chemical byproduct.

Fish glue does exist..... but from what I understand that stinks too...it is expensive, hard to get and has limitations.

the new generation marine epoxies are great, about as strong as glue gets... but some react badly to the fumes....."Boatcoat"...has been designed to be a lower odour lower alergy marine epoxy.......but there are still issues that pertain to epoxy...just less so.....all good epoxies correctly mixed are innert once completely cured.


Glues are like make up.....if you want to continue a vegan outlook and use them....... just dont ask.......at least we dont test glues on animals.

None of the animal glues are derived from animals specifiacly killed for the purpose....not now not ever......they are all industrial byproducts of animals killed for other puropses, mostly meat......in fact production of animal glues, It can be argued reduces the waste stream.........in the modern world domestic animals killed commercilay live reasonably well and are killed quiclky and cleanly, in the wild they would live in fear and certainly die a violent death......don't get me started about US piggeries, battery chickens and whales not the case for those.

And if you are concerned about environmental damage.....well any vegitarian lifestyle is dependent in intensive agriculture, which in turn distroys native forests and kills native animals....( sorry)

Seriously..is it you just don't like the smell...or you have a medical issue?

either way......good ventilation should be a workshop requirement.....Ya havn't talked about finishing the job yet either......that is where the smelly stuff realy starts.

If you want to avoid glues all together.....you have to move to a different form of construction...and work with pegged or wedged joints..... but you are looking at heavier more rustic styles of work.

cheers

Originally Posted by soundman

...at least we dont test glues on animals.

No, but horses are tested to destruction around race tracks and then rendered down for glue. That's sort of in the same frame as 'testing on animals'.

Originally Posted by soundman

None of the animal glues are derived from animals specifiacly killed for the purpose....not now not ever......they are all industrial byproducts of animals killed for other puropses, mostly meat...

Agreed, the majority of animal glue must be made from animals killed for human consumption, but a percentage of animal waste also comes from other animal fatalities, although good luck trying to identify or seperate the two.

Joanna, if you Google 'gelatin' or 'gelatine' (which is all just refined animal glue for human consumption) you'll discover it's a key ingredient in all manner of everyday food and pharmaceutical products. If you like jelly and fruit jelly lollies, then you've been eating animal glue!