Glueing pine together to carve

[dunno103]

Hi all




in another forum (tools and machinery) I received this reply. I was thinking of planing pine square and glueing the pieces into a large block.


Quote:
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Steve

now that you have the gear to make your carving blanks, you may want to pop over to the carving forum and post a question or two about the best way to align the grain when you glue up your blanks and what sort of glue might be best.


enjoy

ian
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My question to you more experienced people is; can anyone help me with aligning grain and glueing pine. What glue is best and what glue is good enough if the best is too expensive?

This has been in the woodcarving forum for a week and has received no replies. Upon talking to Bodgy (thanks mate) I have posted it again here.

All thoughts will be appreciated.

TIA

Steve
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[Just George]

I made Cabriole Legs while at college 3 years ago, we used Pencil Cedar but it was glued together with PVA. Then the legs were cut out using a bandsaw and then shaped/sanded using the various sanders in the Woodmachinists Workshop.

[Ianab]

Normal woodworking PVA will be fine as long as you can get good straight edges and clamp the whole thing up firmly till the glue dries. The glue will be stronger than the wood you are gluing.
The fancy glues let you fill gaps between boards (Epoxy), be waterproof (gorilla glue) and other tricky stuff. Normal PVA wood glue is what you need .
You can use Gorilla glue of course, but it costs twice as much and wont gain you anything.

Cheers

Ian

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

What Ian said. Especially the bit about the glue being stronger... provided you get a good brand PVA. Don't buy the cheap generic stuff, you only get what you pay for and the joint will suffer for it. The few extra pennies for Triton or Titebond III are well worth it, IMHO.

I've found that so long as you're only gluing two pieces together at a time, leaving adequate drying time before adding the next piece (between half an hour to several hours, depending on the glue, weather, phase of the moon and how you hold your tongue) clamps aren't really necessary. Provided both mating surfaces are properly squared, then just apply a thin, even coat of PVA to both parts and gently rub 'em together until the glue starts to bind. (known as lapping the joint, not to be confused with a lap-joint. )

This is especially handy if you're gluing oddly shaped pieces that don't clamp well and also gives you a bit of leeway to orient the grain. I've seen an entire segmented bowl built up and turned this way... and couldn't pick any difference in the end result.