Pro Gluing Method For Furniture Repair!
1 Video View·Nov 9, 2018
Woodworkers and furniture owners are going to encounter an end grain split. The challenge is getting glue deep into the split. Use this simple and effective method to get the adhesive where you need it. Glue is better "pulled" into the split rather than "pushed".
EXTRA TIP - if the wood has finish on it, excess glue can be wiped off with a damp towel. If the wood is raw, make sure to mask it before hand. Glue this is dampened and wiped off the raw wood will affect the ability of the wood to accept stain and finish and can only be addressed by sanding off - something that can be undesirable. Lesson - the earlier in the woodworking process you glue up the split, the better.
Hey, this is Dirt Farmer Jay from DirtFarmerJay.com.
Have you ever had a project like this
where the end grain is split and dried out
and then you're trying to figure out
how to get glue or epoxy into it?
Well, I've got a great tip for you.
Stay tuned.
Well, if you've ever done any fair amount of woodworking
or you've had any fine furniture over a period of time,
it's very likely you've had one of these form
right at the end grain.
It could be on the panel of a table
or some kind of large panel
or in your wood shop while you're working with something.
Now, we've put this sample piece of wood here
just to demonstrate this.
And you can see right here that this crack is formed.
Let me tell you very quickly why the crack is formed
and then let's show you a superb tip
on how to get adhesive down into the crack.
Well, I'm gonna use a little bit of a object lesson here
or just an illustration.
These coffee stirrers are much like the end grain
if you magnified the end grain of raw wood.
Wood grain is made up of fibers
and you've got these little tubes like this.
And as you can imagine, there's a lot of surface area here.
So the end grain is going to tend to dry out
much quicker than the surface does.
And when it does, the wood shrinks
and it's gotta give somewhere.
So a crack will form just like this.
Well, it's good for the wood to be able
to relieve the stress, but it's bad for us
as furniture owners or project builders
when you have this form.
So how do you take care of it?
Let's show you.
All right, you've probably taken the approach
of trying to get glue to go down in the crack.
And a common way to do that is you use a thin blade
of some kind.
It could be a credit card or putty knife
or some kind of piece of metal.
And you take glue and you puddle it on the top
and then you take this
and you kind of force it down in there.
Well, that's got limited effectiveness.
Another one is use small objects like toothpicks
where you again would puddle the glue
and then try to work the glue in in the crack and all that.
The problem is that doesn't get it down very deep into it.
And trying to push glue is kind of like trying
to push a rope.
It doesn't work really well.
You can pull it in a straight line
and that's exactly what we're gonna do.
We're gonna take glue and we're gonna pull it
in to the crack.
Well, here's how you do that.
I just take a piece of blue tape
and I start at where the crack is
and I go around and cover that whole crack like this.
The idea with blue tape is that,
or this type of tape, painter's tape,
is it has a moderate adhesive so it can stick
but it also can be readily pulled up.
Now, what we're gonna do here is use a vacuum
to pull the glue down.
I'm gonna show you how it works here.
Every one of these is a little bit different.
So certain areas of it's gonna pull the glue in very fast.
Other areas are a little slow.
But the bottom line is you're gonna have
a lot less mess to clean up
and much more glue will be down in the joint.
By the way, this can also work with medium set epoxies
if you're deciding to put a decorative epoxy
or just using some kind of epoxy to glue this back together.
All right, well, let's give it a shot.
We've wrapped this and that's to control
where the vacuum or the suction is.
We're gonna take this and we're gonna take our glue
and puddle it up on the top of the crack here.
And we're gonna go ahead and take our vacuum.
And here we go.
Listen to the bees.
Pull off some of the tape at the bottom.
As you can see, the glue is already pulled
into the joint right here.
This open area out here,
let's go ahead and feed a little bit more glue into it.
You're gonna see it suck it in.
There it goes.
It's taking the glue down and into the joint.
And viscosity of the glue matters a lot.
So this is actually an autumn day.
Glue's a little cold.
Room temperature glue is gonna work better.
But as you can see, look at it pulling it in.
And we've simply affixed the vacuum to the bottom.
Once you're satisfied
that you've got enough glue into the joint,
you can go ahead and shut off your vacuum
and simply bead off the rest.
And you can see that the glue
is definitely down in the joint.
Look at the end where it's pulled into the joint.
It's a lot better than trying to push it down in there.
Then you can do your typical clamp across the end
of just simply clamping it shut.
And watch that.
Do you see the glue bead form?
It's definitely got glue down in the center.
When this comes to the gummy stage,
it dries a little bit, let's say 15 minutes.
Again, you can take the putty knife or a scraper
and just scrape that off.
Lightly sand all this.
And then you've got a repair
that's gonna last a long time
and is going to be much more durable
than trying to shove the glue into the gap.
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Until the next time, this is Dirt Farmer Jay
from DirtFarmerJay.com.