gluing varnished wood

I would use extremely coarse sandpaper to make cuts through the finish without actually changing the dimension. Your standard glue will probably work just fine, then.

You can consider pegging the joints. I just did this for the first time with through-tenons on a workbench, and I didn’t really need glue at all. I only put glue on the pegs.

-- Steve B - New Life Home Improvement

If you want a good bond with end grain you have to remove the varnish, trust me “been there done that”. The peg idea is great and I’ve solved the problem several times with my finish nail air gun then filled the nail holes with “hole and nail set” pencil from the local BORG.

-- Only the Shadow knows....................

I don’t know how much work you want to do, but you could trim down the tenon and then glue and clamp new wood to it and recut it back to size. If it were me I would probably try some lacquer thinner or stripper first to see if it cleans up or opens the pores back up.

You could also convert to loose tenons, but I think I would peg them, unless you really are worried about the stress they will take.

-- Rich in Richmond

Jo, don’t feel bad we’ve all done it :>) good suggestions on top, but this is what I would do. If the mortise is OK and you’ve already fitted your tennon (I assume) then I would try to clean off as much finish as possible then cut the tennon smaller, laminate it to size and there you have it. Do both sides if you can, but if your working with a thin tennon that might be difficult. Also, getting the right thickness laminate can be difficult. I don’t have a drum sander, and I don’t remember you saying you did, so I add a piece of MDF under a board through my planer to get it down thin enough. That’s what I would do, that way you have raw wood for all the glue surface, and since the glue is stronger that the wood these days, no strength problems either.

-- Jim Hallada, Chesterfield, VA

Just my two cents….awhile back I was bored and got curious about how well my glue would hold up on a sealed and stained board. As an experiment I took a piece of solid oak and sealed it with some sanding sealer then put a coat of gel stain on it….let it dry completely and then glued a piece of scrap to it using tightbond II….clamped it and let it set. Then tried to remove the scrap, first by hand then by hitting it with another piece of wood….then with a mallet…..finally ended up putting it in a vice and hit it several times with a ballpeen hammer before it broke loose….but not without taking some of the stained board with it. My conclusion….I wouldn’t worry too much about it… you could always run a test yourself to be absolutly positive

-- Stan from St. Paul Mn

foodog,
Thanks for the advice. Here is what I just did (JUST did). I scuffed the board lightly and applied tightbond 3 (neeed the open set time). Then I clamped everything up. The tenons are not a perfect fit. they don’t reach teh full depth of the mortise. What I decided to do was take some gorilla glue and drip that down into the gap. I hope that helps to pick up where the wood glue left off. We’ll see what happens. Between the two, I hope I’ve got plenty of gripping stength. Thanks to all for the posts. I really appreciate it!