Glue up question

[Ray Newman]

Colleagues: I am seriously thinking of fabricating a new tool cabinet that was in the “Fine WoodWorking” Tools and Shop Winter 2006/2007, Issue 188, pages 40-45.

Fabricated from ¾” Baltic Birch plyw’d, cabinet is 13 ¼” deep x 32” wide x 48” high and joined by ½” box joints.

Question: what glue has enough open time to apply the glue to numerous box joint, allow clamp placement, checking for square, etc., before setting up?

[Curt Putnam]

How long is going to take you to do the case glue up? What will be your shop and material temperatures be when this happens? If things are warm enough (> 50°), liquid hide glue should do the trick if you work at normal speed. If you are as slow as I am and your shop temp and materials will be on the cool side, I would think epoxy with a slow set hardener would do the trick. In the summer, the urea glues will also solve the problem.

[Ray Newman]

Curt Putnam: Will look into epoxy, even though I do not like working with it.

I keep the shop at about 50 degrees. Planned to turn heat up and keep it overnight/24 hours at 70-75 degrees. Will do a practice glue up and leave clamps handy at the required opening to save time. And like you, I am not a fast worker.

[Mike Henderson]

Epoxy is your friend. You can get West Systems with the slow hardener and that can give you an hour of open time. But be careful - the epoxy reaction generates heat and that can greatly decrease the open time. I put the epoxy in a container and then the container in ice. The keeps the epoxy from cooking off.

Mike

[Paul F Franklin]

I haven't looked at the cabinet in question, but is it possible to split the glue up into two or more steps? One side and the back, and one side and the front, for example? Then TB extend or liquid hide should give you plenty of time. Gluing the two main sections will take a little more time, but if you got the two halves nice and square, you shouldn't have to do much or any squaring during the last step. I hate the stress of big glue-ups so I always try to do them in smaller sections when possible.