Thread: Grooving plane - mark 1

Makes sense. I guess it can be advantageous in the right circumstances also. It reminds me of my chemical engineering lecture that was stating from a bad memory that all polymers (plastics) are fluid so over its life time your plastic chair will have changed shape even it it is by just 1mm.

Originally Posted by Berlin

Ian, would you use hide glue in a scenario like this?

Not willingly. It would probably be fine, mechanically, but because it is both a high-stress joint (at least potentially) and you are extremely unlikely to ever want to pull it apart, something more 'permanent' like epoxy would be my first choice. It's marginally easier (for me) to mix a small amount of epoxy than fire up the glue pot. And what if some clown left your plane out in the rain?

I have to agree with you that epoxy is not nice stuff to use. No matter how careful I am, it gets itself smeared over the wrong areas, including my hands. It says on the pack "avoid skin contact". Yer, right, I wish I knew how - the bleeding stuff crawls up the mixing stick, I swear! It has no tack, and even lightly-clamped pieces tend to slide out of whack if I'm not meticulous in placing clamps just-so. You always mix at least twice as much as you can use, so half of every pack is wasted, & it ain't cheap! Yes, you can freeze it, but that's more bother than it's worth (especially when the kitchen boss finds them in the meat tray). So is there anything good about it? Only thing I can think of is its bond-strength........

And I'm not a glue expert by any stretch of the imagination. Quite a few years ago, I thought I knew a little bit about the subject, after reading as much as I could find that I could understand with my limited undergrad chemistry. Armed with my great store of theoretical knowledge, I offered to give a talk to the local woodies club on glues & glueing. I prepared a set of props well beforehand, so everything was nicely cured & at maximum strength. On the day, I proceeded to demonstrate various properties of several glues by destroying my demo pieces to display the ratios of wood vs glue failure and so on. It was all going reasonably well until I got to the part on the futility of glueing end-grain to end-grain. The pieces I'd glued thus with a good pva glue obligingly separated with a light tap on the bench. Then I picked up the pieces glued with epoxy, with a great flourish, intoning "and even epoxies are useless when it comes to end-grain" & whacked it on the bench. Nothing happened. WHACK, WHACK, WHACK - the only result was a good jarring of my elbow & wrist and a howl of mirth from the audience. Apparently, the look on my face was worth 10 years subscription to the club - I thought a couple of the old blokes were going to disgrace themselves they were laughing so hard. I met one former member recently, & it was one of the first things he mentioned.

Moral: take note of what you read, but check the facts for yourself wherever possible. Matt & DSEL, you are warned...........

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Apparently, the look on my face was worth 10 years subscription to the club - I thought a couple of the old blokes were going to disgrace themselves they were laughing so hard. I met one former member recently, & it was one of the first things he mentioned.

R.O.T.F.L.M.A.O