Glue, adhesive, what ever you want to call it, is one of those things that woody folk seem to take for granted, I know I have done for years. For ages I've used a bog standard PVA and not really been concerned with it apart from the fact that it sticks stuff together and was cheap...my dears!
Well, that source of cheap glue suddenly got expensive, so I thought it was maybe time to look at other options...and besides, I was getting a bit hacked off with only being able to use half a bottle of glue as the remainder seemed to gel into a glutinous, globby goo at the bottom of the bottle...and then my fingers got covered in the stuff when I tried to get it out of the bottle with a small stick...yuk!
By a coincidence Axminster have a good deal on at the moment (and up to the end of December) on all Titebond glues (25% off) so I thought that I'd give TBIII a punt...got to be worth a shot at that price. I'd used TBI (the yellow stuff) in the past and I'd quite liked it...apart from the fact it ain't waterproof, which I didn't appreciate at the time. It happened that I'd done a bit of veneering and used tape to join a couple of bits together. Usual practice is to use copious quantities of water and a nylon scourer to lift the tape except in this case the bloody veneer started to lift as well, the result of which caused me to read the label on the bottle in a little more detail, where I discovered the reason for the veneering debacle!
The whole thing really put me of Titebond for a while...in this day and age you'd have thought that any glue manufacturer worth their salt would have least have the decency to make the stuff waterproof...apparently not.
So it was with a little bit of trepidation that I ordered the TBIII as I wasn't really sure if it was going to 'cut the mustard', but having used it for a few weeks now I've come to the conclusion that it's pretty good stuff...and I like it!
It's got a slightly longer 'open time' than standard PVA and is much more viscous. Whilst some may think that a disadvantage it's not, because it means that the glue can be applied far more economically with a small stick...I use the point of a bamboo skewer as it's a pretty tough material and doesn't get mushy with prolonged use. It also means that it's easy to get the glue precisely where it's needed, especially using the slidy applicator on the bottle cap, which is a boon.
The glue squeeze out, such as it is, can be cleaned off with little effort using a barely damp brush and best of all the stuff's waterproof, so I can use it in the AirPress for veneering.
Perhaps the thing of most concern though is the supposedly dark glue line on lighter timbers...hence the pic with the two test pieces glued together, one in maple and the other in pine.
I did think I'd need some white TBII for lighter timbers but if that's the colour of the glue line, I'm not going to worry unduly, so there'll be an order into Axminster for a gallon of the brown stuff fairly shortly.
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