# Will Wood Glue Stick To Itself? Work In Progress, Quick Answer Would Be Great!



## LoyalAppleGeek

Greetings and salutations fellow LumberJocks!

I have a quick question that surprisingly I was unable to find an answer for. If I could get an answer pretty quick, that would be great, I'm on a time budget  I use Gorrila Wood Glue, as its basically Titebond ll but cheaper, at least here. I was doing some joinery, on one side the the glue was fully cured, on the other it wasn't… And I forgot which was which. I ended up putting the spreader on the partially wet joint, and of course, it snapped off. This is to delicate of an alignment to sand or re-cut to remove the old glue, so I need to know if wood glue will adhere to itself, or if I scrape it off and reattach it the joint will be weaker.

Thanks!


----------



## dhazelton

PVA glues work best when joining porous surfaces. I would scrape the old stuff off. Or use a two part epoxy if you can on the surfaces, but you still have to rough them up with sandpaper quite a bit.


----------



## HokieKen

I'm by no means an expert but, I think you will probably get enough of a bond to hold something in place if the joint won't be under any stress. By gluing to cured glue, you will be greatly reducing your surface area so you won't get as much of a bond due to that. Also, the cured glue is non-porous so there won't be as strong a bond because there is no "tooth" for binding. If you MUST bond to the old glue, be sure you're not relying on the glue bond to bear any stresses, sand the old glue as flat as possible with coarse paper to give it some tooth and make the surfaces conform as much as possible and, it may help to heat the old glue immediately prior to the glue-up.

I'm by no means an expert, so take my opinion with a grain of salt! Just giving you my "off the top of my head" thoughts since you need quick replies. Hopefully someone else with more expertise will weigh in shortly.


----------



## LoyalAppleGeek

Thank you guys! I completely blanked the difference in surface area that pores give, I needed that reminder. This joint will only be under compression, and it's also mounted to a panel next to it, so it should hold up. I was able to plane one of the mated surfaces, so one side at least will be porous.


----------



## LoyalAppleGeek

And as a side note, Matthias Wandel did a great video testing the strength of different types of glue ups. The biggest surprise was that joints with a small gap filled with glue rather than clamped tightly, were the strongest by 50 Lbs! I tried this just today, and was amazed. It's really true.

Check it out!


----------



## MadMark

No.


----------



## shipwright

Too bad you weren't using hide glue. The answer would have been yes.


----------



## LoyalAppleGeek

I recently sharpened my chisels as John Heisz does, and that enabled me to remove the glue very effectivey at the surface. I planed the side I could, scraped the other, and re glued it. Seems fine!


----------

