Recommended Glue for a Workbench Top

[Lou Yelgin]

I would like to glue-up a hard maple bowling alley slab (21" x 72") for use as a workbench top. I removed all the nails years ago, so the pieces are being held together with duct tape.

What glue do y'all recommend?

I am leaning towards white glue because of the longer open time, but am concerned about durability. Glue technology has advanced a lot since the days of Elmer. I believe there are 3 kinds of Titebond glue. Then, there is Gorilla glue and epoxy. I used the West System epoxy to build my boat, but it is expensive and may be overkill for a bench.

Thank you for your advice.

[Zane Moseley]

Titebond "extend" may be your best bet, it has a longer open time. I glued up a 30" x 84" x 3" oak bench top with in in one glue session. I probably had 35-40 pieces to glue up at once. With that said I wouldn't recommend gluing up that much at once even though the open time is longer, I would do it different if I did it again.

[Cody Colston]

I would use what I use on almost everything, Titebond III. It's strong, waterproof, has about a 10 minute open time and won't cost an arm and a leg. Do the glue-up in stages for that size benchtop.

[Curt Putnam]

Almost anything will do. I'd use TB III. It's stronger than the wood and won't be fazed when I spill my beer on the bench. <g>

[Greg Scull]

I would like to glue-up a hard maple bowling alley slab (21" x 72") for use as a workbench top. I removed all the nails years ago, so the pieces are being held together with duct tape.


Lou, different question, what process did you use to pull the nails? I have 15' x42" in the garage i need to pull nails from and re-glue.

[Neil Brooks]

I gotta' go with the "whatever you have on hand" position, PROVIDED that ... it's plenty fresh (most manufacturers post the shelf life of their adhesives on their websites).

This is a pretty silly place to cheap out, IMHO -- trying to get another mile out of a totally expired bottle of glue ;)

I don't see open time as an issue in this situation.

Do you have handscrew clamps ?

Use the handscrew clamps to "flatten" (/"align") each pair of boards as you glue them up, continually moving the handscrews (hopefully, TWO pairs or more), to the next glue-up.

The other thing I strongly recommend:

Width.

If I were rebuilding my bench, the top would come off in TWO parts -- each narrow enough to fit in either my planer or (my top's actually too thick, but not everybody's is) my drum sander.

There WILL come a day when you need to flatten it again.

And .... I'd DO your glue-up in batches/components -- again -- no more boards than you can get through your planer.

The best time to flatten a bench top, IMHO, is while you're building it.

So ... you glue up ... say ... four boards, and then run it (that 4-board glue-up) through the planer.

Eventually, you have (let's say) six component glue-ups, and you glue THOSE together, using that handscrew method to keep them flat.

In THEORY ... the result is: a Purt' Near Dead Flat top, or -- at least -- a smoothing plane and 30 minutes away FROM Dead Flat.

Good luck !

[russell lusthaus]

As to glue - I think I would opt for TBII. The strength of any of the TB glues are more than adequate, but the color of the glue lines are different. If you care that much, a color test would be in order. III dries slightly darker, so the glue line on your maple will be somewhat visible. The color of the II would be a good match for maple. My $0.02.

Russ

[Howard Acheson]

>>>> I am leaning towards white glue because of the longer open time, but am concerned about durability.

White glue is just fine. According to Titebond, there is no significant variation in expected long term durability of white glue.

I glued up my maple benchtop in 1985 and have had no failure in joints or glue lines. Be sure you can get sufficient pressure onto the glue-up. That's the critical factor. Go through 4 or 5 dry-fits to make sure you have everything in place and know the steps.

[Mike Konobeck]

I did two 12" sections for my tops with a gap down the middle like the 21st century workbench that Bob Lang built. Have had a chance to use it more and more and really like it. Never thought about the fact that all I have to do is unbolt each section and run them through the planer in the future to flatten if they move but after Neil's point I like the bench design even more now. :-)

Used Titebond II Extend and did each 12" section in one shot. Don't do that unless you are absolutely certain that each of the strips are jointed/planed perfectly. Doing them in pairs or sets of 4 at most is a great point. Then you can make sure that any gaps can be taken out and it is more manageable to move around. It is amazing what a 7'x12"x3.5" hard maple section weighs.

Last good point already brought up. Don't try to save money. $20-40 for glue is cheap when you consider the effort you would have to go through in a few years if the top started to come apart.

[Paul Symchych]

Russell: Now you remind me. Actually I knew that but in a spurt of laziness I recently glued up an otherwise properly jointed maple table top using TB III. The glue lines are ever so slightly visible. I didn't feel like going out to get some TB II and used the TB III that was at hand. I may be the only one to pay attention to it but it is there.

[David Gandy]

Titebond "extend" may be your best bet, it has a longer open time. I glued up a 30" x 84" x 3" oak bench top with in in one glue session. I probably had 35-40 pieces to glue up at once. With that said I wouldn't recommend gluing up that much at once even though the open time is longer, I would do it different if I did it again.

Exactly what Cody said: This is what I used on mine pictured below


http://i881.photobucket.com/albums/ac14/rodeking2/100_0732.jpg

[Mike Schuch]

Nah!!!! Go old school, put a big pot of boiling water on the stove and start adding some ground up cow hide scraps, boil for a few days.... Just kidding +1 for Titebond!

[Lou Yelgin]

Thank you for all your good advice. I plan to use Titebond II extend.

Regarding Greg's question about removing nails from a bowling alley slab, I used wooden wedges, a crowbar, a hammer and pliers to take out the nails. It was tedious because the nails were all twisted ring shank nails. However, I did not want to chance catching a nail when it came time to drill the holdfast holes.

[Jim Neeley]

I've just gone through the glue-up of a couple of slabs from 8/4 stock using soft wood (one 3-1/4", one 4-3/4"), each 3'x7'. Eventually I want to make one out of hardwood but since I don't have a workbench now, I've decided to try a couple to decide how thick I want (also to hopefully make my major mistakes on).

Anyway, I don't get frequent shop time, so wanted to glue up a whole top in one setting. That made working time my main decision basis. With research I learned that West System epoxy (2-part, available in quarts and gallons, with 4 different hardeners) offers an extra-slow hardener (209) that greatly exceeded the working time of anything else I saw. It offers a working time of 3-4 hours and cures to solid in 20-24 hours. That gave me lots and lots of time to carefully apply the glue and align the 24 boards, one by one. I used a small paint roller (~4") to apply the epoxy. West System offers roller covers especially for the job. I'm sure others would work, it was just a no-thinking solution for me.

Whileresearching glues I learned quite a bit about epoxy. First, it gives off heat as it cures. Second, the hotter it gets, the faster it cures. The faster it cures, the more heat it gets off and the hotter the epoxy gets. You get the picture.

While the working time is 3-4 hours, if you mix 100 grams (about 4 ounces) in a cup, its pot life is only 40 - 50 minutes. The secret is to keep it spread out, once its mixed.

What I did was to get a small aluminum (disposable) baking pan (about 9"x12") and used a separate cup to mix it up in, dumping it out into the pan as soon as a "batch" was mixed.

The glue-up was a 2-person application (my son and I), with one person applying glue and assembling the top and the other mixing up small batches (~4 oz) at a time and pouring it into the pan, where it could spread out and stay cool. I did the mixing and handing him new boards and he did the applying and aligning. Since he's very meticulous and we weren't in a hurry we spent most of 2 hours gluing up the top. It worked great!

If you're concerned about the price of glue this isn't the solution for you since between the two we used about a quart of epoxy (~$80). It was definitely worth it to me given that when I make the maple top the wood will cost me $600-$800 and I don't want to screw *that* up.


West System epoxy also sells pumps for their resin and hardner, calibrated so equal number of pumps of each gives the right mix. Since neither hardens on its own you can just leave the tops in and have epoxy at your fingertips whenever you want it. One pump of each makes about a half-ounce so that's the minimum "easy-make" batch size. You can always "guess" smaller batches, if desired.

Jim

192659

[Dave Anderson NH]

Hi Lou, Check out my article on building a bench in the guild Journal about 2 years ago. I used titebond extend and gave the rest of the unused galon to John Watson when I was done. Welcome to the Creek.

[Charles Goodnight]

I used titebond III. It has a long enough open time, and it is easy to work with. I glued my top up in two slabs slightly less than 12 inches. I ran these slabs through the planer, then glued the two slabs together, and finally glued the till to the back. I also glued them up in sets of 4 to build up the 12 inch slabs. The advantages (1) even with a long open time I find I screw up alignment if I glue too many boards at the same time (they slip during clamping, and I am hurrying too much to notice), (2) planing on the power planer takes a lot of drudgery out of the flattening process, and (3) those slabs are HEAVY. There is a lot to be said for having the slab in pieces as long as possible.

That said, my neighbor's approach to big glue ups is to use west-system epoxy with the slow set hardener. he works in a very cold shop until the glue up is complete, then cranks the heat to 75 degrees and lets it set. The cold shop gives him 30 plus minutes of open time. It seems to work, but I really can't vouch for it.