Gluing wet wood

[Tom Giacomo]

I want to turn a piece of wet or green wood using a faceplate and a glue block, will there be a problem gluing wet wood ?

[Daryl Parks]

Yellow glue will not bond if moisture content is higher than about 22%.

[Bill Bulloch]

Ray Key does his bowls using a glue block with CA Glue. Search Youtube for Ray Key.

[Wally Dickerman]

CA glue works fine with wet wood. Moisture is an accelerant so will set up faster on wet wood.

[Tom Giacomo]

Thanks gentlemen I did not think of CA glue but I did glue up two pieces to see how it would go. I used Titebond 2 clamped it for 12 hours and when I took the clamps off they just fell apart, I'm going to try the CA glue. PS the moisture content read 19 per cent.

[Wally Dickerman]

When using CA for glue blocks be sure to use lots of glue.....squeeze-out is a must. No clamp just hand pressure for a minute or so. Ready to turn in another minute or so

[Tom Giacomo]

Today I used a medium thick CA glue and it bonded the wet wood perfect, I was able to turn the piece wet almost immediately. Thanks Wally.

[steve worcester]

best bet is to use a flexible CA so that it won't shear as easily from the shock of the gouge.

[Tom Giacomo]

How can you tell if a CA glue is flexible ? Also is a CA glue joint permanent ? I read that CA glue joints will eventually fail and was wondering if that was true.

[Wally Dickerman]

For most any glue job yellow glue is the best. However, for many years I've used CA for gluing collars on HFs. Never had a failure that I know of. I've seen pieces that I did 30 years ago...still intact.

I think that CA gets a bad rap regarding shearing off glue blocks etc. If a glue block fails its almost always because not enough glue was used or the gluing surfaces weren't true and flat.......I've been using glue blocks for a lot of years on hundreds of pieces. Haven't had a failure in years.