doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DIY Gunsmithing @ doublegunshop.com Glue Choice for Stock Repairs

Thanks, Jim.

Stan, the color of wood glue on the surface should be totally irrelevant, because the last thing you want with any stock repair is glue on the surface. It will stain the wood and act like a wood sealer, and interfere with staining and final finish.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather not have to resort to some dark built-up finish to attempt to conceal a glue joint. Although I have also found that the choice of final finish does have an effect on the visibility of a repaired area. In other words, some finishes may make a repair joint stand out, while others make it far less visible.

I really like Titebond II for repairs in walnut, simply because it gives me the most invisible joint of anything I have tried. Even in rather dark Black Walnut, a Titebond II glue joint is not lighter than the wood on either side of the crack. With a good close fitting joint and correct clamping, the glue joint is often almost invisible, which is exactly what I want. Good epoxy and Titebond III are slightly stronger, but a sound split wood repair with Titebond II will in most cases be stronger than the surrounding wood, and that's good enough for me. Of course, that statement on strength of the joint will not apply to an end grain to end grain joint.

There are other times when Titebond II is not the best choice, such as when gluing stock wood that may have some oil contamination. In that event, I would likely choose a polyurethane glue. But I find that polyurethane glue is messy to use, and any foaming or squeeze out that is on the surface takes more sanding to remove so that it won't act like a sealer. The shelf life of polyurethane glue is pretty short too. I would be much more inclined to choose a good epoxy when the glue joint is not on the surface, such as when repairing a split or crack in the inletting, or when embedding some reinforcing pins, dowels, or tenons. Epoxy is always better for gap filling too, but of course, such repairs will be easy to detect. And if I have to mix some fine sawdust with epoxy to fill a gap, inclusion, or defect, I find that pine sawdust is often a better choice than walnut sawdust, because the walnut sawdust and epoxy mixture will typically be much darker than the surrounding walnut. Pine sawdust mixed with epoxy will often give a much closer color match on a walnut repair.

I have used my compressor to force glue into a crack plastic rap and surgical tubing to hold it till dry works great with odd shaped pieces

Great information. Very helpful.

Thank you, Keith.

I sure would like to see some pictures of a bad break repaired with Titebond II, then stained and hidden with an oil finish that is not built up. Easy to do on a crack that follows the grain but less so on cross grain breaks, lost wood that has been replaced, stock extensions etc.

What a great place this is for the exchange of information.

Use strips of bicycle wheel innertube to bind things up when gluing, Tremendous force can be applies to close cracks in ark ward shape situations and the like leaving no marks in the wood.. Easy to remove dried adhesive by stretching and it will fall off, using slow set Adhesive lets you wrap and re wrap until things strap up right. Use mono filament fishing line or dental floss to pill adhesive into and along cracks.

Old School again and as yet never found anything better.

skb...nice job fixing that churchill...

what about accraglas...does anybody use that anymore...

Keep up ed, and do a little leg work for yourself and read the whole thread from the beginning. In Steve's first post he said this ...........

Here's the update:

GFlex Epoxy arrived from Jamestown Distributors.
Applied just enough on both pieces to get a tiny bit of squeeze out (used a trimmed flux brush to apply). Didn't take a picture with the glue, but it's as expected.



Clamped up with strips of bicycle inner tube (c clamp just to keep the ends from unraveling.



I also clamped across the grain because I was having a little trouble getting this front gap to close completely. I started with a regular ratcheting clamp but then ultimately just added another extra right wrap of inner tube.





Left it overnight and took off the bands this morning. there was minimal epoxy on the surface, which I was able to remove with some steel wool.



In the right/wrong light, the crack is visible but I think it will be pretty easy to blend in.

Very Nice Work! Looks like you have it licked.

Will you bed the action next?