Adhesive Suggestions

[Herb Smith]

I’m using a wood known as Moradillo (also known as Pau-Ferro and lots of other names) for a small jewelry box. Normally, I dovetail the corners but in this case I cut on 45 degrees. The sides are only 3/8” thick. Way too late, I’ve found that there are issues with adhesives for this type of wood - dense, oily, similar in properties to Rosewood. Some suggestions that I’ve read are to wipe with acetone before applying glue. Others suggest using epoxy. Looking for suggestions from anyone with experience with this wood

[Chris Fournier]

I would ignore the acetone crowd. I would not use epoxy. I would make tight fresh joints and use PVA. Do a test joint and try what I recommend. If it works for you then you're good to go. I have used 100's of BFT of rosewoods and never resorted to acetone and epoxy. Not once. And no failures either. This is one of the biggest non-issues in woodworking ever.

[Bill Conerly]

I've worked with teak, another oily wood, successfully by wiping with acetone and then using epoxy.

But the suggestion to test on scraps is good.

[Wayne Lomman]

I have successfully used both resorcinol and epoxy on oily timber including teak, tallowood, rosewood etc and never had a failure. These have all been high profile public works where failure is not an option. I have never wiped with acetone. So yet another variation. Cheers

[Mike Cutler]

I’m using a wood known as Moradillo (also known as Pau-Ferro and lots of other names) for a small jewelry box. Normally, I dovetail the corners but in this case I cut on 45 degrees. The sides are only 3/8” thick. Way too late, I’ve found that there are issues with adhesives for this type of wood - dense, oily, similar in properties to Rosewood. Some suggestions that I’ve read are to wipe with acetone before applying glue. Others suggest using epoxy. Looking for suggestions from anyone with experience with this wood

Herb

If I'm understanding this correctly, you have 45 degree mitered corners, essentially giving you an end grain to end grain glue joint. If you want that joint to survive the test of time, it either needs to be re-enforced with a spline, or you'll need a structural adhesive. A product such as T-88, or a structural adhesive, would work, but you would be better served re-enforcing that joint with some type of small spline.
The acetone/oily wood/epoxy/glue up prep/aspect, is another matter altogether. End grain to end grain is always going to be weak, regardless of the wood species.