Laminating wood - what glue to use?

[Toucan13]

Hi there

Now that Winter is here, I thought a good winter project would be to build a new wooden rudder blade for my 15ft clinker dinghy. Rather than just use a single piece of wood, I thought it might be fund to laminate some different colour woods to get an interesting look.....something stripey!

What I don't know though, is what glue to use? Assume I can't use PVA wood glue as that is water based. Can I just use a standard epoxy or is there anything else out there that does the job but is easier to work with?

Thanks in advance for the advice

Cheers

 

[pyrojames]

Lest you think people rude for not responding, perhaps you could look at other threads for information first. This was discussed, as recently as, err, yesterday! Some 5 and 6 lines below your post.

 

[Toucan13]

OK OK point taken!

 

[Spuddy]

I now use the polyurethane stuff ( Balcotan etc ) wherever I can; your rudder will not be permanently immersed and varnish film easily maintained so Cascamite or Aerolite would do but PU adhesive still my choice. Make sure you cramp it up to get a fine glue line or strength across width of rudder will be affected. Ideally lay out your boards so grain pattern in cross section is a zig zag from piece to piece but to be realistic, a bit of warp or twist is not going to make much difference. If you want to investigate epoxy and coating the whole lot then a search should show you what you need to know.

 

[Toucan13]

Thanks Spuddy - very interesting and helpful. I have used epoxy as an adhesive in the past and have been pleased with the results, however it is damn messy stuff to deal with. I'll investigate Balcotan and see what happens.

Interesting about the grain direction. Never thought of that.

Cheers

DT

 

[skipperscouse]

you might like to look at extrophen [humbrol]. great to work with,smells nice,washes of with water, and tried and tested over many years. i laminated olga's 50ft mast with it ten years ago, no problems.