Gluing Cumaru (Brazilian Teak)

[Jeff Beecher]

I have recently installed a Brazilian Teak Floor in my house. With the leftovers I want to mill it and finger joint it together to put a new top on my work bench. I have heard that there are some problems gluing this wood because of the inherent oils. Can anybody give me tips on preparation of this wood to have a successful end result? I also have enough Hickory from another room, but would love the teak. Any information would be appreciated. Thank you in advance.

[Steven Satur]

The only thing that ever worked for me was to clean the glue joint with acetone, that removes the oil in the teak. Then the only glue that worked long term for me was a 2 part epoxy made by West Systems.

Steve

[Homer Faucett]

I hope you get some good answers. I am in the process of making 5 deck post covers for my parents with this stuff. I used acetone and Titebond III (copious quantities, at that), along with putting 3 floating tenons on each of the 4 corners. I really don't want to countersink and plug screws as well, but I guess we'll see what the experts tell us.

[Jim Matthews]

I just made a bench for outside use with Teak face glued with Titebond III.

No special preparations were necessary, just get the joints right.230064

[scott vroom]

We use acetone to clean the jointed edges, then glue up normally with TB II. Never had a joint fail.

[Larry Edgerton]

The only thing that ever worked for me was to clean the glue joint with acetone, that removes the oil in the teak. Then the only glue that worked long term for me was a 2 part epoxy made by West Systems.

Steve

Ditto......

There is a large contingent of boat builders in my area, and this is unanamously the method of choice with teak. I have a laminated teak and glass rail system that is on Lake Michigan that has stood there for about 18 years now and took all that the lake can dish out.

Easier, no. Better for extreme conditions, you bet. For the workbench I guess you could use T-3, but for the outside stuff I would recommend the West System.

Larry

[Peter Quinn]

Ok, cumaru is nothing like teak in any way. They call it "Brazilian teak" as a trade name to make it easier to sell, but it has nothing in common with actual teak at all. I've seen a lot of both of them. Its closer to IPE minus the oils. Real teak is down right greasy/waxy, but still glues well with tite bond III, increase clamp time to 8 hours minimum. Tite bond is not for boat building, so don't go out on the lake in a boat built with it! But its fine for general wood working with dense exotics and way easier to work with than epoxy when you don't really need epoxies performance factors.

Cumaru is very dense, you need to increase the clamp time to maybe 12 hours and DON"T OVER CLAMP. Over clamping will squeeze all the glue out an IME make a weak joint that can easily fail. Use a liberal amount of glue and leave it in clamps, no problems. I've made counters, stair treads, table tops, lots of glue ups with this stuff Again you need solid even clamping pressure, but don't get out the long pipe and go gorilla on the clamps, it will just starve the joints. If you do go epoxy, same rules apply as to clamping time and pressure, maybe even less pressure for epoxy.

As for the finger joints, I'd be more inclined to use a very long scarf like a boat builders scarf (so its basically a long grain glue up) or a long half lap than finger joints on that species, because it will be hard to clamp the end grain together in a meaningful way, and it won't easily conform like a typical finger joint made with soft woods. With pine you can actually crush the two machined pieces together to form a tight joint, cumaru is not going to crush and conform.