Glue thread & titebond III

[Larry Gipson]

I found an older glue thread and found some great posts by Bob Smalser regarding Titebond III.

I only wish I'd found this thread sooner. I've glued up some white oak planks to make a thicker board, then found cracks where the glue didn't fill in. I ran the glue-up through the jointer and table saw before the cracks were apparent and, of course, the glue was already cured.

I had no idea Titebond III joints weren't repairable. These PVA glues create a plastic when cured and tb3 will not stick to plastic. I called Franklin and their chemist (Bob) confirmed that this is the case and only a CA glue will stick to the tb3 film. I was also told this CA glue bond was far weaker than if the tb3 had actually worked as planned. I bought some Titebond CA glue and tried bonding some oak with a cured tb3 coating. It seemed to work, but a quick yank with the test board in a vise was all it took to separate the CA bond. I suppose the good news is that the Titebond Ca glues come in thick, medium, and thin viscosities which can be mixed to create any intermediate viscosity you'd want. The bad news is that it's a brittle glue that doesn't really adhere well to a tb3 film.

This has me re-evaluating my glue choices. I've purchased West Systems 105 for the remainder of my assembly.

The purpose of this post it so see if anyone has made further progress in joining tb3 coated surfaces. I saw from the other thread that PL Premium Construction Adhesive can be used, but it's pretty thick to be used for filling a crack. I'm still in contact with Franklin on this, but so far none of their products seem to adhere to the tb3 film. Their best advice is to separate the boards at 150F, clean them, and start over.

Thanks

[John Coloccia]

SOP for repairing Titebond joints (1, 2, 3 or really any other wood glue like this) is remove all the glue first. Many guitar repair guys won't use Titebond for repairs because if it ever breaks in that area again it will be 10 times harder to fix. A lot of us tend to gravitate towards hide glue for repairs. Titebond is pretty standard for new construction, though, since you assume that the instrument will never be disassembled and that you'll never get a break along a typical glue joint....and those assumptions are pretty good, actually, for most of the joints. Bridge on an acoustic is a notable exception where you really shouldn't use Titebond because you expect to do bridge work someday.

[Chris Padilla]

http://de-gluegoo.com/ This stuff works as advertised...I have a bottle on my shelf.

[Larry Gipson]

This sounds wonderful Chris.

I suppose it would sound even better if the crack was the full length of the board(s). It wouldn't hurt to try it.

I looked at the manufacturer's website and it doesn't specifically mention tb3. (Yellow glues yes, but tb3 is actually brown.) Does it work?

Thanks,
Larry

[Larry Gipson]

update:

The de-gluegoo does work on titebond II and III, but turns them into a rubbery substance that must be cleaned off - according to the manufacturer.

Franklin told me that these glues can be removed with acetone, acetic acid (vinegar), and water in a 1:1:1 mixture.

[Tai Fu]

PVA glue can be cleaned off with steam or water/vinegar mixture... I've restored guitars with PVA goop all over it and it works fine. I have used titebond I (and only I) for a dovetail neck joint simply because I couldn't get everything clamped up in the 30 seconds it takes for hide glue to set... For a complex clamping job (especially for a dovetail + fingerboard extension job requiring sometimes multiple clamps for a good bond), hide glue offers way too little time. The titebond can be steamed and cleaned off later on in the future but some players think Hide glue makes instruments sound better...

[michael osadchuk]

update:

The de-gluegoo does work on titebond II and III, but turns them into a rubbery substance that must be cleaned off - according to the manufacturer.

Franklin told me that these glues can be removed with acetone, acetic acid (vinegar), and water in a 1:1:1 mixture.

The material safety data sheet on De-Gluegoo (available on its website as a link under the heading 'composition') states that the active chemical ingredient is "methyl cellulose acetic acid diluted 5%"...... I'm not a chemist but I believe acetic acid is the active ingredient of vinegar.

Michael

[Larry Gipson]

De-gluegoo is a gel according to the manufacturer. If the viscosity of the gel won't work in an application, I suppose knowing the readily available active ingredients would allow a person to simply make something as thin as water. By the way, I asked the manufacturer if his product would work on tb2 and tb3. His response indicated that he/they'd only tried it on tb1 so did a quick test to find out that it would, in fact, work on the other products. Not many companies would do that and I thought this was impressive.

Something I think I forgot to mention: Franklin said their CA glues will not harden in an acidic environment without their activator product. Apparently Titebond II and III are acidic when cured. I'm using white oak and was told it's also somewhat acidic. At any rate, they convinced me to buy another product :-)

[Chris Padilla]

The material safety data sheet on De-Gluegoo (available on its website as a link under the heading 'composition') states that the active chemical ingredient is "methyl cellulose acetic acid diluted 5%"...... I'm not a chemist but I believe acetic acid is the active ingredient of vinegar.

Michael

It certainly smells a bit like vinegar.

[Dave Zellers]

Pretty timely thread for me.

I glued up a few boards with TBIII the other evening and forgot to clean my glue brush. It's an expensive artists brush that I've used for 30 years. I found it the next day hard as a rock.

Mixed up about an ounce each of acetone, vinegar and water and let it soak. It broke down the new glue right away but I left it in to see if it would break down all the years of accumulated dried glue deep in the bristles. It took a couple days and a fair amount of me slowly pulling them apart and scraping out the softened gunk with a painter's comb but I finished today and now this old brush is like new! Wow.

Thanks for the info! This should go in the Tips thread if it isn't there already.