Glue for teak

[Bernie Ross]

Advice please! I'm a beginner, working for the first time with teak, making a small pair of candleholders. I read somewhere that glueing is tricky, as the wood is so oily. What should I use?? The joint in question won't be under any load (hey, it's only a candleholder), but I want it to last.

(Oh, and while we're about it, any other advice in working with this rather wonderful stuff, also appreciated. BTW, the guy that sold it to me said it was FSC certified, not plundered unsustainably from some Burmese forest).

- Bernie

[js]

[Andy Dingley]

Almost anything - for a low-stress joint like a candleholder, even a water-based PVA would probably be adequate.

Polyurethane and epoxy are unaffected by its oiliness. Personally I use epoxy.

It's probably plundered from a Cambodian forest. Fraudulent paperwork is _rife_ with teak. Malaysia has a sawmill industry with a capacity

4x what they need for their own logging industry, and they're keen to keep it busy. There's a really big problem with one kosher log going into a sawmill and coming out as several times as much sawn timber, all with matching paperwork.

-- Smert' spamionam

[Frank McVey]

Hi Bernie,

This is a bit of an old chestnut. Sure some teak can be pretty oily, but I've worked with plenty that isn't. I've used both white and yellow carpenter's glue (Evostick resin W, a PVA glue, and Titebond) with good results. My last job using teak was to laminate a tiller for a 38 ft yacht from teak and English oak - I used West Systems epoxy resin for that job.

If you're twitchy about it, degrease the gluing surface with any solvent degreaser, acetone being the usually recommeded one, before gluing.

Cheers

Frank

[Mike G]

Somewhere in the various woodworking publication I received over the last two months the subject of gluing oily woods was addressed and tests run. While I can remember the article and results of the tests I can not remember which publication it was in.

Traditional wisdom was that wiping a prospective glue joint down with naphtha or other quick drying "oil remover" was what was necessary to get a successful glue joint.

The article and tests done refute this bit of wisdom and the results of the test showed that a freshly sanded area to be glued provides the strongest bond.

[Bay Area Dave]

I too, read that article. It probably was in either FWW or Wood, as that's the two I subscribe to. The author prefers fresh sanding to any kind of chemical treatment.

dave

Mike G wrote:

[Phisherman]

Regular carpenter's glue works fine. You need to clean the joints with acetone before the glue up. The polyurethane glues are supposed to work well too, but I do have personal experience with these on teak.

[Steve Knight]

I don't think teak is all that oily anymore. a easy test will poly dry on it? if it stays tacky it has a fair amount of oil. cocobolo and padouk are really oily ipe too. but little teak I used did not seem very oily. but as usually a fresh milled/sanded surface is the best thing for gluing oily woods.

[BUB 209]

Whenever I want to be really sure about the glue on oily wood I use the nasty stuff - formaldehyde resin. Dap makes it and Elmer's makes it although it isn't that easy to find in stores. It comes in two cans, a resin and a powder. Once I had to veneer a curved surface with rosewood and every time it would come out with bubbles. I tried Elmer's, epoxy, etc. after soaking the wood in a tray of solvent until the water turned red. Nothing would work except the formalde- hyde resin. And its what they used to hold down the teak decks on old wooden Chris Craft boats.