The Glue that Binds....

The 2 things I see discussed more often on all of the boat building sights are plywood and glue.  Everyone would love to use all marine plywood with epoxy everywhere, but due to costs and sensitivities we're all looking for cheaper options we can trust.  I personally have used just enough epoxy to know that it won't take a lot of work with it before I'm up a glue creek as far as it's concerned.  My father could tell if you dumped a little resin out from the other end of the house when I was young.

I found my plywood solution with some absolutely beautiful ACX at my local lumberyard.  Nothing like it in the big box stores, and only @ $10.00 a sheet more than the best crap I could find there that was only exposure 1 rated. 

In my previous post I slapped some short pieces of 1x2 on to an indiscriminate piece of 1/4 ply with absolutely no surface prep and only a single clamp on each piece.  One using gorilla glue, the other using Titebond 3.  I did this in a 41 degree garage where the wood has been sitting for the last 1.5 years.  About 4 hours later I took a chunk of 2x4 and slapped it in between the other two pieces with some PL Premium 3x, no clamping at all.  I gave it not quite a day, pulled the clamps and had a look.  I could tell I was clamped better at one end than the other on both pieces.

I started twisting with my hands on the PL premium piece first.  I was pretty impressed, but I managed to "tear" the glue.  It was probably holding the wood apart somewhere between 1/16 & 1/8 of an inch, but I was pretty impressed anyway.

Both the Titebond 3 and the gorilla glue held surprisingly well.  I had to "roll" the pieces off the glue bond.  There were definitely torn wood fibers, and I could see the ends where I had little clamping pressure  I would have absolutely no problem using either of these glues where my fit was tight, but I wasn't done testing yet.  I rolled one of the 1x2's to the clean side and glues it down on the other sie of the 1/4 ply, the time with good clamping all along.  Then I took the PL premium and glue it down much more carefully and clamped it as well to give it a real chance.  That was @ 10:am this morning.  I'm going to give it a full 24 hours this time.  It's actually up to 55 degrees right now, and it looks like we're going to be in the mid 40's to low 50's over the next 48 hours.

I'm hoping the Titebond 3 impresses me even more.  it's definitely the cleanest and easiest to work with, and any excess dries clear.  The foamies on the gorilla glue are easy enough to shave off with a sharp chisel.  The PL will definitely be the messiest of the bunch.  I think the PL might be just the ticket for laminating the two layers of bottom together though.  Kind of like what it was designed for :-)  It also might be a good choice where my fit isn't quite so nice and the finish isn't so important.

I can't believe I'm having fun waiting for glue to dry.....