Cold weather experience with Titebond III?

[bsa441]

My gara... shop is unheated, except for the heat that bleeds from the house, and wintertime woodworking in Seattle, although not quite as rugged as in the Northeast, can be a bit chilly. Nonetheless, I have glued up projects in temperatures colder than the minimum stated on Titebond I many times, and have never had a glueline fail. I have seen the chalking you would expect from glue that's too cold, but only on the squeezeout.

However, this year I decided to try Titebond III, in part because it has a lower working temperature than Titebond I. To my surprise, I had a couple of joints fail, even though I was gluing at around the minimum working temperature, 45 deg. F. Has anyone else experienced this, or did I mess up some other factor, like starving the joint, or maybe not having the surfaces in tight-enough contact?

[dpb]

[e-mail] wrote: ...

I'd go w/ the cold as the primary culprit. Yes, I've had the problem.

Remember it's the actual temperature of the material not just the glue that will be controlling. Even if you bring the glue out from the house, when it gets in contact w/ the wood surfaces that remained in the shop it'll get to their temperature real quick.

I wouldn't risk low-temperature gluing -- the time involved in getting to glue up plus the pita of repairing the results of a failure just don't make it a paying proposition in my book. If you can't arrange some heat or bring the work inside, my recommendation is to wait 'til warmer weather.

[cwo4cno7325]

I too would recommend getting some heat to your project. I assume you have Lectricity, so even a small portable radiant heater may do the job. Maybe some real experts on the subject can verify my guess that you would only need the heat for about an hour for the joint to set. Hope this helps.....

[KIMOSABE]

Earlier this year someone here steered me to butane heaters.

I have an unheated space that I have to warm up intermittently. This thing is just the ticket.

[SonomaProducts.com]

I think you just got lucky in the past. The chalking temp is pretty well established and maybe just a humidty or other factor changed it by chance.

If you don't want to warm the whole shop, and the projects are small enough, let the wood and glue sit in the house and warm for a few hours, take it all into the shop for glue-up and return it back to the house to setup. Even just the warmth of a mud room, etc is probably enough.

[bsa441]

Good suggestions, all. Man, I wish I had a mud room! Or near Seattle, where I am, a pine-needle room!

[Tanus]

I live in one of the coldest climates of anyone in the Wreck. I also have a shop that is mostly unheated, except for the time that I'm in it. I keep my Titebond in a cabinet that is kept warm all the time to avoid the -30° days. I've thrown out Titebond that has frozen and then been thawed.

Having said that, I've also had some pretty serious glue failures in the past, attributed to the cold. Not only just the temperature of the day, but of the glue and of the surfaces I'm trying to glue.

I've learned that lesson. If I need to glue something up, the glue, and the surfaces must have been in >60° for more than a couple of hours. If that's not possible, I bring everything (including the clanky clamps that my wife hates) inside and let them acclimatize. That's normally overnight.

Since I've taken that attitude, the only glue failures I've had are from badly mated surfaces.

Tanus

[Robatoy]

You could always ship your glue jobs to me here in Canada's Banana Belt.

[Tanus]

To save on the shipping (both ways) I could just toss them in the truck and bring them down on my forays to the Great White South.

One of these days, I just gotta get a building that's heated.

Tanus

[Swingman]

"Tanus" wrote

Ditto ... I have assembled full blown projects on the kitchen island when it's below 45 degrees outside for any length of time, the parts come in the night before, and the big bottle of TiteBond stays in my office in the house, year around.