Reclaimed wood glue-up problem

[Zac wingert]

I was lucky to receive a whole lot of real old what looks like redwood t&g boards. They were covered with mold and dirty, but after cutting off the t&g and the ends, and a few light passes through the planer, they looked beautiful. They were stored flat on a cement floor and don’t have warping problems at all.

I cut cut a bunch of it up to make a bookshelf and started gluing pieces up. The glue doesn’t hold at all. They were sufficiently clamped. Enough glue was applied. I let the glue set for about four hours (very hot day in Hawaii), but when unclamping they fell apart immediately.

my neighbor said they might be so dry because they are so old that they just sucked up all the glue or that the mold that was growing it on them could have affected the wood internally even if you can’t see t, but he was not sure.

What do do you think? Should I just try again now that they have a layer of dried glue on the edges to be joined, or just switch to epoxy? Or just ditch the wood for this project. I spent an entire day planning the layout, cleaning up the wood, cutting it to size and setting up several glue ups. Got real frustrated with it.

Also note on what is to be the top, I put a strip of mango between the redwood for decorative purposes and that piece is strong. It’s the only one that held and was actually clamped up for the shortest time.

Thanks.

[Wayne Lomman]

What glue were you using? Brand, type and age will help with solving the problem. If it was contamination it would have been obviously dusty, greasy or whatever. Mold won't cause an immediate problem like this. It will be more likely old glue, glue skinned off before you brought the joints together, glue too low in solids or glue not suited to the application. Do a test with identical scraps using your current glue and alternative. Do same technique, same time clamped etc and see what happens. You will get plenty of other ideas as well. Cheers

[Richard Young]

What type of joinery are you using?

[Lee Schierer]

I made a cutting board out of redwood when I was in 9th grade, 56 years ago. It was glued with Elmer's white glue. It has never failed. I would suggest jointing your edges to clean off the old glue and then regluing with fresh glue applied to both sides of the joint.

[Jim Becker]

I will add that some reclaimed wood may be impregnated over the years with oils and waxes, depending on what it was used for and that might sometime make glue balk at joining things together. But otherwise, fully cleaning up the surfaces is essential because most glues need to penetrate the wood fibers to "do what they do"...and that includes almost all normal wood glues, such as the Titebond series, etc.

[Bill Orbine]

My experience with using PVA glue on redwood has been hit or miss. With some of the hits, it was easy to separate separate the joints cleanly with minimal wood breakage when excessive force was applied to the joint, such as a strike with a mallet. There would be alternate test using PVA glue on different species of wood, such as pine or oak, and the results are that glue joint is stronger than the wood. With redwood, I sleep better having used recorsinol adhesive. My experiences with redwood was in late 1990's so I not sure what new advances in adhesive technology such as epoxy.

[Ted Phillips]

My experience with using PVA glue on redwood has been hit or miss. With some of the hits, it was easy to separate separate the joints cleanly with minimal wood breakage when excessive force was applied to the joint, such as a strike with a mallet. There would be alternate test using PVA glue on different species of wood, such as pine or oak, and the results are that glue joint is stronger than the wood. With redwood, I sleep better having used recorsinol adhesive. My experiences with redwood was in late 1990's so I not sure what new advances in adhesive technology such as epoxy.

Recorsinol glue is waterproof and UV-resistant, but it doesn't have very good gap-filling properties. If the joints are very tight, you'll be OK with it. But I would try a modern epoxy before I went this route - West Marine makes some incredible stuff.

[Mel Fulks]

I glued some redwood with Titebond 2 and it took long time to dry. Rep said it not the best for redwood. Too much tannin
in redwood and it retards drying. I let it stay in clamps over night and it did ok,but I would not use it for redwood again.

[Bill Dufour]

I have never had a problem but folks say redwood needs to be wiped off with solvent before gluing. Old growth will have much more of the issue. I find it hard to belive redwood supported mold growth. That must have taken decades of alternating wet dry.
Bill D.

[Zac wingert]

The glue is titebond II. It’s a fresh bottle purchased maybe 3weeks ago. I used it the weekend before with no problems.

The wood was leftover t&g that was used for the single wall construction in the house built in the 1970’s. It has likely sat since then in a storage room.

The boards were pretty straight off the off the table saw, but after running into problems I took a bench plane to them and got them straight enough that this shouldn’t be the problem. No jointer.

At at this point I am just edge joining some of the pieces to make larger boards for the sides, top and shelves. Didn’t even get to the actual construction yet.

Hope this helps. So clean off, try again, and let it clamp longer? Or different glue? Or epoxy? Or something else

Below is a photo of the the wood. I’ll post a photo closer up so the grain pattern can be seen when I get home. 390286390287

[Rich Engelhardt]

Out of curiosity ----I googled "glue for redwood" and found all sorts of contradictory information.
About the only positive constant was - Resorcinol.

TB II and TB III seemed - - problematic. Lots of people had similar failures.

I also found this:
California Redwood Association
818 Grayson Road,
Suite 201Pleasant Hill, California 94523-2693Telephone 925-935-1499Toll Free 1-888-Cal-Redwood www.calredwood.org
You might want to shoot them an email or call them and ask what type of glue would be best.
They do have a lot of literature on their website you can go through to see if there's anything there.

[Mel Fulks]

We have the answers. But alas,we have no credibility.

[Zac wingert]

Thanks for the help.

here is the top. It’s a small bookshelf, built to size of the wood that was given to me.
390310

I dont know if maybe this would be considered old growth?

I got epoxy but am rethinking the whole project because the point of this was to make this whole thing with no metal, using dado’s and rabbet’s, etc.. i make a mess enough with glue.

[Michelle Rich]

redwood is oily & resinous. that is why it lasts so long outside. The glue does not stick to oily stuff

[Robert Stanton]

This doesn't help the OP but I experienced a similar problem using reclaim wood. It was hard maple from a submarine battery well. The wood had a wax impregnated into it that I did not notice when cutting to size. had a hell of a time trying to glue up. I finally realized the wax and gave up on the project.

[Patrick Varley]

So what type of joints were the ones that failed? You say the top held, so that means edge grain joints were ok. You also say you're using rabbets/dados which makes me think the joints that failed involve the end grain in the joint. Gluing edge to face grain isn't that great, regardless of the type of wood you're using. If that's the case, I'd rethink your joinery/design. You don't want screws, but some dowels/floating tenons may help.