• June 2025 Turning Challenge: Turn a Wand! (click here for details)
  • Sign up for the 2025 AAW Forum Box Swap by Monday, June 30th (click here for details)
  • Congratulations to Carl Ford for "Rings of Raindrops in Living Color" being selected as Turning of the Week for June 16, 2025 (click here for details)
  • Welcome new registering member. Your username must be your real First and Last name (for example: John Doe). "Screen names" and "handles" are not allowed and your registration will be deleted if you don't use your real name. Also, do not use all caps nor all lower case.

face grain or end grain for glue blocks?

Dave Hulett

Dave Hulett

Joined
Jul 26, 2015
Messages
441
Likes
661
Location
Hot Springs, AR
I've been using glue blocks more and more in the past year. Lyle Jameson got me started on them although it was several years after his demo before I found their value. I was just getting ready to make up some new ones and a question occured to me that can't find an answer to:. That is: Should I be glueing to the end grain or side grain?
 
I use face grain.
I use CA glue - Lyle showed me this. The CA Fractures with chisel to take the piece off.
Just turn the glue off and the glue block is ready to use again and again and again….

Glue block is an excelled reverse drive friction jamb Chuck to finish the bottom.

The face grain holds better on a faceplate and easier to turn the concave in the face.
 
I use face grain on my glue blocks.
Would not think the glue would hold as well on the end grain.
I use yellow glue (Titebond) and let it sit at least over night.
When I get some good scraps of green wood, I turn some glue blocks.....a bit over sized. Seal up the end grain and then throw them in the corner. After about 6 months - I re-turn them. I like to use Oak when I can. Learned turning using glue blocks.
And like Hockenbery......I use them over and over and over again.
 
We have lots of fir out here.....

The Project Farm guy did a test of wood glues. Funny thing, he did a bunch of end grain to side grain glue ups, and even cut a log in half and glued it back together end grain to end grain. It almost held up his tractor. Also, he rated the old standard Elmer's wood glue slightly ahead of Titebond. LInk

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-g3efGa3sI


When your waste block starts to get thin, you can glue another piece on top and start over, rather than making a whole new one. I have a bunch that I use for threaded boxes that are on 1 by 8 tpi lock nuts, some thing I learned from Bonnie Klein.

robo hippy
 
What weakens end grain glue joints using PVA glues (Elmers, Titebond) is that the water is sucked out of the joint before the glue molecules can link up. Epoxies and urethane adhesives don’t have that problem.

Christopher Schwartz has written that you can successfully do end-grain joints with hide glue if you coat the glue surfaces with glue first, let it harden, and then glue the joint.
 
I use end grain whenever possible. I have had the wood of face grain blocks fail, but never an end grain fail because of the wood. Using g titebond you need to let the glue wick and then apply more glue.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top