glue for bottlehead base

[aragorn723]

Hi,

Is Gorilla glue good for bottlehead bases?  Just got one for the Quickie the other day.  Thanks,

Dave

 

[Paul Birkeland]

Gorilla wood glue is fine for the wood bases (Titebond would be my #1 choice).  Normal Gorilla glue is a poor choice for the bases, as it expands and will ooze out of the cracks.

 

[Grainger49]

Any good WOOD glue is fine.  White, yellow, Elmer's glue will all work.  The standard Gorilla Glue not so well.  But their wood glue is fine.

 

[amioutaline?]

Any good WOOD glue is fine.  White, yellow, Elmer's glue will all work.  The standard Gorilla Glue not so well.  But their wood glue is fine.

Very true but the differences between them are important.

Rather than brand, call them, as Grainger did, White, Yellow and a third, light brown.

White is the easiest to work with because it has a long open time for fiddling the parts into alignment. It's bond is stronger than the wood itself so more than adequate.

Yellow has become the norm which is silly because all it adds is increased water resistance at the cost of very short open time. The latter makes it a non-starter for multiple piece glue-ups like cabinets.

Light brown, the latest addition to the Titebond line, Titebond III, has the water resistance of Yellow and the open time of White. It also creates a somewhat stronger bond than either. Great, right? But it dries hard as rock which makes it difficult to remove from squeeze out on faces and murder on plane and scraper blades.

All three will squeeze out and dry on and into the wood which will result in marring the finish. Sanding it heats up the glue driving it deeper into the wood and making the situation worse unless you sand deep enough to create an even uglier trough. For Goverment Work just monitor the drying, usually 30 to 40 minutes and peel off the excess when it gets rubbery. Never wipe off the excess right after clamping with a damp cloth, see Sanding.

What I recommend is use the Bottlehead approved taping of the chassis pieces together so they fold up into square after applying glue to the miter faces but entirely tape the face area adjacent which protects them from the glue. The bit of glue that might squeeze under the tape is more easily dealt with.

Best practice though is to wipe shellac on the chassis pieces before glue-up and after sanding them with 220 grit paper, being careful not to get shellac on the miter faces. The shellac resists the glue perfectly and seals in any resins or minerals in the wood that show up only after finishing.
Especially if you use band clamps, shellac is mandatory. It also looks great under varnish like Sherwin-Williams Classics Fast Dry Oil Varnish (friends don't let friends use Urethane). Or you can continue wiping on multiple coats of shellac to create a beautiful finish.

Pix show band clamp in action and a 12 coat Amber Shellac finish on Padauk.

 

[dbishopbliss]

Just adding emphasis... use WOOD glue.  Technically, Gorilla makes WOOD glue, but most of the Gorilla brand I see is NOT wood glue and is intended for other purposes.

Remember a little goes a long way... put a bead on the joint and spread it around with your finger so that it is even and thin.  If you have a bunch of squeeze-out then you used too much.  You are better off letting squeeze-out dry completely than you are trying to wipe it away when it is wet.  Once it is dry, you can usually use a chisel (not your good ones) to get it to pop right off.

 

[Grainger49]

Most of the wood glues I am familiar with, you can wipe off any squeeze out with a moist cloth/tissue/sponge.  It is water soluble when wet.  I have done this many times.  Follow David's advice above about how much to use and you won't need my advice.

 

[aragorn723]

wow, I wasn't expecting that there would be so much to learn about wood glue!  Maybe i'll buy a container of the basic wood glue (white) and call it a day.  Just don't want to mess up a really nice laser cut base!  I do have a bottle of titebond II dark wood glue too.  It says it has excellent water resistance and is ideal for exterior applications and has a strong initial tack / fast set.  Would that be ok for the base?  The other thing i'm wondering is if a really dark wood glue can impact the result of the staining?  Thanks,

Dave

 

[Grainger49]

Yes, Titebond II is a wood glue. 

 

[Adrian]

Elmer's Wood Glue - White.....been around forever for a reason - it works exceeding well at securely bonding bare wood, easy to work with (reasonable working time), cleans up easily (can be sanded without excessive effort), can be found just about anywhere, and is priced right.

Elmer's White.

 

[dbishopbliss]

Most of the wood glues I am familiar with, you can wipe off any squeeze out with a moist cloth/tissue/sponge.  It is water soluble when wet.  I have done this many times.  Follow David's advice above about how much to use and you won't need my advice.

You can wipe most off with damp sponge but if you are going to finish the base later with a stain or tint, you might realize you didn't get it all off and the results are uneven.  That was my experience when I was taking a furniture making class.  Most of my bottlehead amps still have masking tape on the bases. 

 

[4krow]

A lot of good thought here, but I side with the idea of having a finish applied to the wood, so that whatever glue you might use, has less of a chance of adhering/absorbing into unwanted areas. The braces used on the inside corners also get my vote. In the end, the best method speaks for itself, as shown by Mr. Epstein's work.

 

[aragorn723]

So the recommendation is to use wood glue, and to stain the base first before gluing.  How about poly before gluing?

Dave

 

[Doc B]

My take on this is different - but I've only been assembling these bases since 1995. I glue the raw wood up carefully, keeping the glue away from the outside corner so it doesn't ooze out. Sand the base with 220 grit on a palm sander. That allows me get all the corners leveled out and ever so slightly break the sharp edges. Then I stain the assembled base with water base aniline dye, or more often leave it blond. Seems to me if the glue does happen to ooze over the stained wood you could have a mess to fix up.

 

[amioutaline?]

So the recommendation is to use wood glue, and to stain the base first before gluing.  How about poly before gluing?

Dave

Polyurethane is for Solid State, Shellac, Watco Oil and Varnish are for tubes.

If you want to be like Mike but not make a career out of it, Stretch masking tape over the pieces  completely covering an inch or so each side of the joints. You want to put tension on the tape to make a tight joint. Flip the 4 pieces over to expose the faces of the miters and spread WHITE Elmers or Titebond on them. Thinly cover both faces of each joint (you're gluing quarter grain which is quite porous, a subject for another time), square them up, apply the last bit of tape and next day you have a chassis ready to finish.

Stain is not finish. If you want color: stain, then apply finish. There are all-in-one polyurethane products from Minwax that are OK and will get you listening to music way before any of my projects are ready ;-}

 

 

[aragorn723]

cool!  Thanks for the step by step.  I tend to try and rush projects sometimes, but find that taking the time to do things slowly and methodically gets better results.  Gonna have to give this a try before the inlaws get here

Dave

 

[Adrian]

My take on this is different - but I've only been assembling these bases since 1995. I glue the raw wood up carefully, keeping the glue away from the outside corner so it doesn't ooze out. Sand the base with 220 grit on a palm sander. That allows me get all the corners leveled out and ever so slightly break the sharp edges. Then I stain the assembled base with water base aniline dye, or more often leave it blond. Seems to me if the glue does happen to ooze over the stained wood you could have a mess to fix up.

I agree with this approach.  A little glue (read "not much" here) is all you really need in the joints.  Face it, the joints are a flush fit - you don't need much and I too try to keep it away from the visible areas.  Very important to immediately wipe off excess glue.  I have found that any residual dried glue is sandable and have never had a problem removing it prior to stain, varnish, or paint.  As mentioned above, I default to Elmer's White - works every time. 

 

[aragorn723]

Bill,

I noticed your base has the inside lined with copper sheets.  Is that for shielding?  Have you noticed a difference in sound from that?  Thanks,

Dave

 

[JamieMcC]

The Gorilla multipurpose glue (orange bottle) is a trade branding of what is essentially know as polyurethane glue. In the marine trade I work in its been around for ages. With most modern glues if used correctly its not the glue joint that fails but the surrounding wood fibres.  Its main advantage (as I see it) is that as a glue is it adheres to almost anything, requires minimal clamping force to achieve a acceptable strength joint and it is easy to clean off with a sharp chisel, exacto knife or sandpaper. The most common mistake is over application you only need the thinnest of smears on each joints surface other wise you can end up with a mess, use gloves or you will end up with black fingers oh and if you mix it with water you can make expanding foam  its worked well on all of my enclosures so far.

The tape up method is just so simple and works really well what can help is to use a long straight edge to keep all four pieces of the enclosure aligned along one edge for applying the tape when taped flip over add glue and fold the joints together tape the two ends firmly and place the alloy top plate in to check all is square.

 

[amioutaline?]

Bill,

I noticed your base has the inside lined with copper sheets.  Is that for shielding?  Have you noticed a difference in sound from that?  Thanks,

Dave

You know the old Grandmother joke?

The copper foil is Chicken Soup. It couldn't hurt.

 

[Yoder]

I use the same steps that Dan does. You if do have an accident, then it is easier to correct the mistake with raw wood than already stained wood. My final step is to hand polish the finish with three to four grades of polishing compound.

If you really want to be hardcore in gluing your wood, you could use some Liquid Nails. LN is some hardcore stuff. Instead of using $40 of metal braces for some garden boxes i just built, I used Liquid Nails and four screws on each end. LN is so strong that when I helped, emphasis on helped, remodel a room down stairs last year I had to pull some 2x4's that had been secured to the concrete with liquid nails. I ended up pulling up chunks of concrete with the wood.

As Bill says, there are the all-in-ones which will save time. But, when I have worked with such it has always been a disaster. Don't even talk of putting on more than one coat (at least in my experience)...the stain jacks up everything.

@Bill. Why do you suggest "Polyurethane is for Solid State, Shellac, Watco Oil and Varnish are for tubes" or am I missing a joke here?