glue for bottlehead base

aragorn723 · 4463

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Offline aragorn723

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on: June 02, 2015, 03:28:59 PM
Hi,

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

Dave



Offline Paul Birkeland

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Reply #1 on: June 02, 2015, 06:00:57 PM
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.

Paul "PB" Birkeland

Bottlehead Grunt & The Repro Man


Offline Grainger49

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Reply #2 on: June 02, 2015, 11:29:36 PM
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.



Offline Bill Epstein

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Reply #3 on: June 03, 2015, 02:41:02 AM
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.



 

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Offline dbishopbliss

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Reply #4 on: June 03, 2015, 08:06:57 AM
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.

David B Bliss
Bottlehead: Foreplay I, Foreplay III, Paramour I w/Iron Upgrade, S.E.X. w/Iron Upgrade
Speakers: FE127E Metronomes, Jim Griffin Jordan/Aurum Cantus Monitors, ART Arrays
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Offline Grainger49

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Reply #5 on: June 03, 2015, 09:38:38 AM
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.



Offline aragorn723

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Reply #6 on: June 03, 2015, 01:15:57 PM
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



Offline Grainger49

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Reply #7 on: June 03, 2015, 02:33:15 PM
Yes, Titebond II is a wood glue. 
« Last Edit: November 14, 2015, 12:19:48 AM by Grainger49 »



Offline Adrian

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Reply #8 on: June 03, 2015, 02:41:18 PM
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.

Adrian C.

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Offline dbishopbliss

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Reply #9 on: June 04, 2015, 02:43:24 AM
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.  :-)

David B Bliss
Bottlehead: Foreplay I, Foreplay III, Paramour I w/Iron Upgrade, S.E.X. w/Iron Upgrade
Speakers: FE127E Metronomes, Jim Griffin Jordan/Aurum Cantus Monitors, ART Arrays
Other: Lightspeed Attenuator, "My Ref" Rev C Amps, Lampucera DAC


4krow

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Reply #10 on: June 04, 2015, 08:39:07 AM
 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.



Offline aragorn723

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Reply #11 on: June 04, 2015, 03:00:46 PM
So the recommendation is to use wood glue, and to stain the base first before gluing.  How about poly before gluing?

Dave



Offline Doc B.

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Reply #12 on: June 04, 2015, 03:22:08 PM
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.

Dan "Doc B." Schmalle
President For Life
Bottlehead Corp.


Offline Bill Epstein

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Reply #13 on: June 04, 2015, 03:35:31 PM
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 ;-}

 

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Offline aragorn723

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Reply #14 on: June 04, 2015, 03:51:08 PM
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