When clamping is not an option

I often find myself in situations where I need a strong glue joint but clamping is out of the question.  It might involve attaching a bow loop to a box lid, gluing a strip on the diagonal, or joining two pieces of thin wood.

My solution has been to use my hands to apply clamping pressure, along with an adhesive with a quick grab and relatively fast set-up time. As my projects increased in complexity, I found that Weldbond, my go-to PVA glue, was too slow-setting to be practical for my new needs. I was reluctant to use a CA glue, since they are vulnerable to shear, and no one wants to see decorations snap off with normal handling.

When a new product, Nexabond, came on the market, it was touted as a CA glue formulated for use with wood. I gave it a try, and it performed as well as Weldbond, but with a much faster set-up time. It soon became my adhesive of choice for these special gluing situations.

However, when it became unavailable, I needed to find a suitable replacement.  I located several contenders and set up a test to see how they stacked up against each other, and against Weldbond.  The three on the left are CA adhesives, and the two on the right are PVA glues.

I tested them for ease of application, for how long it took for a piece to hold its position when pressure was released, and for resistance to shear.  The results were quite encouraging.  All adhesives performed well when subjected to "normal" rough handling, such as picking up a lid by the center loop or tail.  When I tried to separate the pieces from the wood, to see if they would shear at the glue line, there was some variation.

The best CA performers overall were Titebond Thick and DAP RapidFuse.  (RapidFuse is actually Nexabond Medium, renamed, and now manufactured by DAP.)  The Titebond Gel formula was too thick to spread easily, but performed best for tests were it could be "blobbed" on.

The two PVA glues performed well as far as ease of application and resistance to shear.  Titebond Quick&Thick had slight edge in resistance to shear, but is less versatile than Weldbond as a general adhesive, making it more of a specialty product.

On a test that involved the insertion of multiple pieces of veneer between two pieces of wood, neither PVA glue produced satisfactory results.  Tasks like this need the faster set-up time of the CA adhesives, and the thick and medium formulations were easier to spread than the gel.

Your choice depends, of course, on your specific needs, but you can be confident that these are all quality products that deliver what they promise.

A new kind of press

Finally got tired of lid liners slipping out of position while trying to clamp the pieces together, so I decided to use my 3" pad sander and drill press to create a way of clamping without torque moving things out of position.

I positioned the lid liner in the usual way, marked its location on the lid, applied Nexabond in dots all over the liner, held it in place for a few minutes, then put it on the drill press table that was elevated with a few thick pieces of maple.  I cranked the table up until it held the lid and liner firmly together, and checked with a flashlight to be sure the edges were fully down.

After a few minutes, I could have removed the assembly and clamped it at the edges with spring clamps, but that didn't seem necessary.  I imagine that this could be made more elaborate, but for a small lid, it seems to have worked just fine.

Last box variation for a while

I can't wait to get some version of these boxes out there.  They are so much fun to make, and I've tweaked the pattern to making sanding a snap.  Well, maybe not quite a snap, but certainly not a problem for anyone willing to take a little time and care.  Butterfly was fun, and not as fidgety as I thought it would be.  Nexabond is fabulous for this type of gluing.

New glue

Had to give Nexabond glue a try for gluing on loops.  It's touted as a next generation CA glue, with a  curing method that uses the salts found naturally in wood.

The glue set up quickly and held well on my sample loops.  However, I was concerned about shear strength, so I tugged on a loop to see what would happen.  I was relieved when the loop broke but the glue bond held.

Too expensive for general use, but when speed and strength is needed, it looks like a good product to have around.