Thread: Gluing spotted gum

I've had no problem with Titebond II on Spotted Gum floorboards which were cut down for furniture production..

Regards,

Rob

sounds good enough for me. Titebond II.

Thanx LGS

Originally Posted by Kuffy

I've ordered a small load of select spotted gum 145x23 skip dressed at a reasonable price. I am going to glue up for coffee table tops, and console table tops. So between 300-800mm wide glue ups. Although I did not ask, I am assuming the boards are backsawn...I hope so atleast.

Which glue works well on the oily hardwoods? I am leaning towards a poly-urethane..but I really hope someone pushes me the other direction because PU can be a nightmare, especially with my "you can never have too much glue in a joint mentality". I could wipe the edges with acetone to remove some of the oils and then glue up with Titebond III...I think?

What are your thoughts?

Thanks guys.

Although Spotted Gum has a reputation for being "oily", comparatively it doesn't seem to be as oily as many of the really oily hardwoods grown overseas, and may not need special treatment. I had a mate back in the 1980's who was a boat builder on Port Stephens (NSW). When repairing frames and decks in wooden trawlers, he usually used Spotted Gum. He used to use an Epoxy and I don't ever remember him cleaning any oily residue off the joints before gluing - just a freshly cut joint, and then glue and clamp it up. Thinking about it, I suspect that maybe he did not need to clean off any oily residue before gluing because he would habitually glue-up immediately after cutting the joint - leaving no time for oil to seep out of the timber into joint surfaces before gluing.

If it was me, I'd grab a few scrap pieces of Spotted Gum and do a few trial glue-ups using whatever wood glues you have on hand that you normally use. Do some samples with and without cleaning the joint with Acetone (or Metho ?) before gluing. I mention doing some test joint without cleaning any oily residue off first, because if you have any mortise & tenon joints in your tables, you probably won't be able to properly clean the insides of the mortices effectively.

Using the test pieces, make some test joints (whatever type of joints you'll need in your tables) and glue and clamp them as you would normally. Make sure you mark each piece so you know what glue you used, and whether or not you de-greased the joint before gluing.

Come back the next day and break the test joints - clamp one half of the test joint in the vice and belt the other half of the joint with a hammer. A sound glue joint should break in the wood, not in the glue line. If the broken joint has failed in the glue line, then make sure you don't build your tables using that method. Any glue joint that fails with torn wood fibres in both faces of the broken joint is a sound glue joint and one that you can safely use in your table tops.

Be aware that when a test joint fails in the glue line, the failure may also be due to either; 1) stale glue (how long has that bottle of glue been sitting around), or 2) Insufficient glue in the joint, or 3) Inadequate clamping pressure. So, if you do get any test joints that fail in the glue line, check those three things first, before assuming that the oily nature of Spotted Gum is the cause of the failure.

As Spotted Gum has historically been used a lot in the wooden boat world, maybe one of the Forum Members from the Wooden Boats part of this forum might chip in with their opinion.

That's my ten cents worth.

Roy

I've had a failure on a thin spotted gum edge joint. I cleaned it up, wiped with acetone and reglued it with no problems. I would wipe it with acetone immediately before gluing with Titebond II, but then, I do that with most hardwoods now.