TB III glue failure...or not.

[Tim Bueler]

There've been several discussions on SMC recently on the virtues of Titebond III so I thought I'd show my experience. This was an un-intentional experiment but I found it interesting none-the-less...simple mind, simple pleasures.

This was a cabinet door, made of alder, a good tight machined joint and glued w/ TB III. The door warped at some point and got thrown in the burn pile outside along with some other rejects that got burned last fall. I just dug this sample out of the ash yesterday after it had spent all winter under up to 3' of snow and subject to recent torrential rains. To say it was soaked would be something of an understatement.
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After taking the before pictures I pried the joint apart. Much to my surprise the joint was still remarkably strong. As you can see in the next pictures there are still some portions where the glue joint was stronger than the wood. Now, I know saturated alder isn't very strong but still I was pretty surprised the joint didn't simply FALL apart after all it's been subject to.
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How would other glues hold up under the same conditions? The first question a research professor friend of mine would ask is "Where's your control group?" Well, um, . Yeah, no control group. Just completely anecdotal evidence that TB III can hold up well under some fairly extreme conditions. Burning, wet ash, fall rains, freezing, snow, spring rains. Not everyday a cabinet door get subjected to that! (hopefully )

Cheers y'all!

[John TenEyck]

Pretty impressive for sure. The joint likely wasn't under any physical stress while it was being subjected to all that abuse, but it's still remarkable that it didn't simply fall apart.

I made a bird feeder more than 20 years ago. The 10" wide roof is three edge glued redwood boards. I used TB III. It has sat out in the weather completely exposed all this time, w/o much love from me, and the roof joints are still tight. On the other hand, I had the veneer on a bottom door rail split right at the seam I had glued with TB III in less than 2 years.

John

[Jim Becker]

And remember, this wasn't just subjected to moisture over time...there was some pretty high heat nearby, too, at at least one point, if not more times, depending on how often you burn.

[Wade Lippman]

The first question a research professor friend of mine would ask is "Where's your control group?"

Hard to say; I think my first question would be "How can a sample size of 1 be statistically significant?"

For what it's worth, the only glue I have ever had fail was HF epoxy. Well, I mean for proper uses; I have had several glues fail when trying to glue plastics.

[Tim Bueler]

I think my first question would be "How can a sample size of 1 be statistically significant?"

Many times I heard my prof friend utter "statistically insignificant". However, in order to come up with a larger sampling group(s), and accompanying control group(s), I would have to make more mistakes and I don't make mistakes any more...of course, I don't make mistakes any less either.