2021 Product Showcase: Titebond Glue

Do you use glue in your woodworking shop? Oh, I missed it. Hang on. There. Got to get it right. I'm going to juggle all three in a second. It's tough working live. Anything can happen. All right, anyways, do you use glue in your shop, sir? I use a drop or two from time to time. Yes, indeed. And, when we answer questions, so when you folks email questions in, it's Paul and I that field all those questions, primarily Paul, and one of the more common questions we get is... Which of the Titebond products should I use, do you use in your shop? So let's hit them with some info here. Original versus II versus III. Give us the Paul explanation. Sure. So in, sort of in my layman's terms, I would say they're all, first of all, going to give you a very similar bond strength. Like a "tight bond." Ooh, bad. But yes. So, the first thing I try to encourage people is, don't even take that into consideration. Don't look at the kind of rounding error level of difference in bond strength, because effectively they're all stronger than wood. We've seen the video that you've done, where you smack it, and it's stronger than the wood. So that, they all pass that litmus test. So from there you say, well, which one is more applicable to my project? So, so starting with the Original, you've got, obviously, strong bond, but it's also very quick-setting. And so that is a, that's a good kind of thing to keep in mind with the Titebond Original, it's, of the PVA glue, it's a quick setting glue. Titebond II adds a water resistance to the bond. So if your project has exposure to the elements, but not submerged, that's going to be a good choice. If your project has waterproof requirements, so it's going to be submerged or heavy exposure to water, Titebond III is going to be a good choice for that. The additional benefit of Titebond III, is that it's FDA approved for food contact. Such as? So a lot of people like to do cutting boards, serving trays, that sort of thing, which is certainly a lot in my shop. And I know you run quite a few of those as well. So Titebond III gives you that FDA approval for food safety, so you've got that confidence, especially if you're selling those, and you want to have that confidence when you're sharing these with a customer that you're giving them something that is FDA-approved for food contact. And again, all PVA-based, so they have that same bond strength. Titebond III, I also like, because it gives you a little bit more open time than the other products. So, which if you're doing a complex glue-up, which a lot of mine tend to be when I'm doing furniture, it's nice to have that additional open time. It gives you that peace of mind, lets you calm down a little bit as you're assembling that furniture project. The glues that we have here, that Paul just took us through, are kind of the mainstay mainstream of the line, but Titebond, not a huge surprise, has a lot of specialty glues. And that's what I covered in the video that we shot ahead of time. So let's have a look at that. Speed Set is a relatively new product for Titebond. And, just like the name says, this is one that tacks up very, very, very quickly. One of the benefits of this is going to be, if you have a limited number of clamps in your shop, and you want to make sure you keep that gluing process moving quickly, so that you can use the clamps for other stuff, this is going to be your baby. No compromises here. This has great strength when it's cured out. So, you know, sometimes you look at a product and say, well, I'm getting this. Am I giving up this? Not the case here. The other cool feature here, is that if you shine a black light onto the completed project, if you've got any glue residue there, there's a chemical in this that shows up under black light. So instead of finding that glue residue when you put finish on, you can find it prior to finishing by putting a black light on it. What we're talking about there is Speed Set, goes quick. What we're talking about here is Extend. When you're doing a project, you know, one of the first ones that come to mind for me is a chair. I've got a chair I've built a lot of, there are 28 mortise and tenon joints on that baby. That's a project where extending the tack time is a great idea, because you want to have enough time to work with all the parts, get them in clamps, check if it's square, fix if it's not square, check it again. So that's where something like Extend is going to give you more working time to make sure that you have complete opportunity to get the project where you want it to be prior to the glue starting to tack up on you. So again, just a different direction than we were going from the Speed Set that we just talked about. Hide glue has been in the woodworking industry since forever. One of the first glues out there that people were using. It's a very interesting product. If you've got anything in your house that has veneer on it, an older piece of furniture, in all likelihood, it was put on with hide glue. One of the benefits to hide glue is it's easily reversible. If we add heat and steam, we can dissolve the hide glue that's there and easily remove that old veneer that's gone bad or started to chip or has water stains on it or whatever. Hide glue is very commonly used by instrument makers, luthiers, for the same reason. That, it's not uncommon that as a guitar ages, maybe you need to do some work on it in the future. Because it's put together with hide glue, you can completely disassemble that instrument, do the work that you need to do, and then get it put back together. So it does offer some unique characteristics. With Titebond's Hide Glue, you don't have to heat it. That's another format you'll see hide glue in, comes in pellets. You have to put them in a pot, you heat them up. Then of course, as you're using it, it's cooling. So you're kind of fighting that a little bit, that, as it cools it, it shortens up the tack time on it. So, with Titebond's Hide Glue, because we're in a bottle, ready to go, we don't have to heat. We don't have to worry so much about ambient temperature as we work with it. It's a really good thing to know about when you're looking for those reversible projects or that ability to reverse the work that you did on a project with glue. Quick & Thick's application in your woodworking, here's a great scenario. You have a big cabinet you're working on, something like maybe an entertainment center, and you want to put crown molding around the top. Only way to do this, is stand the cabinet up and start working on the crown molding. So, as we put glue on the back of that trim and get it put in place, gravity being gravity, glue has a tendency to start running down the side of the case. So one of the benefits to Quick & Thick is, it's got a significantly thicker viscosity than other glues. So it does not have that tendency to get away from you and start running down the face of your work. The other benefit to it, quick, is it's got a short tack time. So again, moldings, especially, great application for this product, anytime that you really want to make sure that you're mitigating the opportunity for glue to start running down your work, that Quick & Thick is a good choice for that. Polyurethane glue is a very interesting product. For most of these other glues, they cure by evaporating. They're giving off moisture. Polyurethane is a glue that actually needs moisture present in order to cure, in order to dry. So if you're ever working with treated lumber, one of the things you might find, treated lumber, like always comes from the lumberyard, kind of dripping wet. If I glue that together with one of these other glues, I have to wait for the wood to dry. I have to wait for the glue to dry. Polyurethane is going to be your choice for that, because it needs moisture in order to cure. In fact, if you're gluing two pieces together that are bone dry, you want to spritz that joint with a little bit of water before you put the glue on, so that it has water present in order to cure. The other thing that's really good for is putting together dissimilar materials. So, for instance, if you wanted to glue a little piece of solid surface countertop, Corian would be a brand name, to a piece of wood. This would be a great choice for that, because it doesn't rely on the porosity of wood, the way all these other glues do. CA glue, more commonly known as cyanoacrylate, CA is so much easier to say, this is a glue that's available in various viscosities, various thicknesses, and dries really, really, really quickly. If you are a woodturner, you got to have some of this in your shop. I use this all the time to repair small cracks in bowls, to put little chunks back on that came off, to glue accents onto my turnings. It does dry very quickly on its own. If "very quickly" isn't quick enough for you, there is also an accelerator for it that'll help it dry more quickly. The glue can also be dyed, so you can use it as an accent. Let's say you're filling a crack in a live edge slab or something like that. And you don't want it to just be clear, you want it to have some tone to it. You can dye CA glue, in order to give it some color. So when you're filling that crack in, it becomes an accent. It's a very, very useful product to have in your shop. It's kind of the, it's the multi-tool of glues. It gives you lots of opportunities and sticks to many, many, many different products. And because it dries so quickly, lets you get back to work really, really fast. There's just a little rundown on some of the family, some of the family members, in the Titebond glue family. Well, we're coming back with a couple of crust-, questions, Paul, easy for me to say. Jay has asked, "What is the shelf life of Titebond?" and didn't identify Original, II, or III, but I think they're all about the same. Yeah, I think for all of them, if I remember right, they advertise it as a one-year shelf life. I will admit I've pushed it a little bit beyond that and haven't had any bonding problems. And one of the things I've seen is, I know we're all trying to make our stuff go as far as possible, but people asking like, oh, my Titebond glue is a little stringy, or it has kind of a funny smell to it. Can I dilute it with water and still use it? Can I, and it's a thing like, you know, for the want of a nail for the horse, the kingdom was lost, you know? So I wouldn't, if there's any chance at all that the glue has been compromised, it is the last thing I would take a risk on, glue or finish, using on my project and having it go hinky later because the glue was actually not any good. And that includes freezing up in this part of the country where, you know, if you're keeping it out in the garage that's not heated, and it freezes up, I wouldn't take a chance on it. It gets that, like, chalky look to it. That's, that's bad. And then Tim has asked, the Speed Set, which is one of the things that got covered in the video, are they going to start offering it in smaller bottles? And I don't know. So, even a year ago when I saw that stuff for the first time, the folks I know at Titebond were saying, "Yes, we're going to start putting it in smaller bottles." But I'll tell you what my answer to that is, seeing if I have one right here, and I don't, but at stores like Walmart and Target, some of the big box stores, they sell condiment bottles, Condiment bottles are excellent glue bottles. They have a really, really small tip on them, and they've got a cap you can put over them when you're not using it. So until they do put Speed Set in smaller bottles, that's a good way to work around that. Michael's asking, how do you dye, he says, AC glue? I think he means CA, cyanoacrylate. Have you dyed cyanoacrylate? CA glue? I don't believe that I have. I've mixed it with stuff, like I've mixed it with mica powders that I use in my epoxy work. I don't know for sure if aniline dye, which is kind of the universal dye for stuff, but I would think aniline dye would do that. I would check with Titebond first, to make sure that you're not somehow compromising the chemistry of the glue by adding that aniline dye to it. That would be tricky, keeping the ratio just right, and you're fighting the clock as well. Yeah, yeah. But I've when I've done a little spot fills, like I said, I've used brass flakes that I've got off Amazon and mica powders in order to give it just a little bit of color. But like Paul says, work fast! Because CA glue sets so quickly. And Joe comments, "I use Titebond III Ultimate for the outdoor furniture I build," which is a great way to go. I mean, like Paul mentioned, difference between Titebond III and Titebond II is waterproof versus water resistant. But if you just go with III for all your outdoor projects, that's better, you're defaulting upstream, instead of downstream. But another question we get all the time is can I just, if I just want to have one glue in my shop, could it be Titebond III? And your answer to that would be... Yes, absolutely. In fact, I buy Titebond III by the gallon, and that's mostly what I use. I keep a couple other glues around: Titebond Original when I'm kind of in a hurry, or, you know, want something to set up quickly, or Hide Glue if I need some extreme open assembly time, because I measured the assembly time of some of these glues one time, and Hide Glue was by far, hands down, the longest open assembly time, at about an hour. Wow. So that's, that's considerable. So if you have a really complicated glue-up, plus that gives you the benefit of repairability, which is difficult, you know, most woodworking glues don't offer that, but you can steam that, take it apart, kind of rebuild something, something that, you know, woodworkers of a hundred years ago were quite familiar with. So if you're repairing antiques, Hide Glue is a really good thing to use for that to kind of bring it back to that original repairability. And the only real negative on Titebond III, which is just, it's just the price point. So they answer that question is, you can build indoor furniture with Titebond III. Just in a cost per ounce evaluation, you're paying more than you would for an Original, which would also serve that same master, but you're not doing anything wrong by using that for just every project you want to do. That takes care of our wrap-up here with these Titebond products.