Hello fine people of Beehaw,
I was wondering if any of you could point me in a direction of a natural wood glue I can buy that is, of course, affordable?
I’m making myself a desktop and I’d rather avoid synthetic glues (polyurethane stuff) and finishes, since the whole point is to replace the melamine thing I have now. I was planning on using pine resin pitch to glue up the boards, but my area has been in drought for almost three months now and I’d rather not set fire to the neighbourhood when I’m making the glue.
Meanwhile, I’ve been tripping over the box that holds the rest of the desk (I won’t be making the legs) so I would love any suggestions!
For the finish I’ll be using some sort of spirit varnish. In the link they use resin from the Jetoba Tree (aka animé :D) dissolved in >95% alcohol, and apparently this varnish has lasted for centuries on violins, so I think it would be interesting to try it on my desk.
All of this will likely be done with some 5/4 s2s soft maple because it looks pretty and I’m pretty chill with my furniture.
Cheers!
P.S. I live in Canada, PNW.
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Personally, I’d just go with ordinary yellow wood glue even though it’s synthetic. Natural things are not necessarily non-toxic, artificial things are not necessarily harmful, and PVA glue is pretty safe provided you don’t drink the stuff (I wouldn’t drink most hide glues either, and those were the normal glues used for woodworking before the advent of synthetics). Even melamine is only moderately toxic (as in, you don’t want to eat it or inhale the dust, but a desk surface isn’t dangerous unless it’s breaking down).
I suppose the ultimate in non-toxic glues is unflavoured gelatin from the grocery store (essentially food-grade hide glue), but its adhesive properties have a reputation for being highly variable—after all, it isn’t meant to be used as glue, so there’s no QA applied for that property.
It may help if you clarify what you consider natural and synthetic wood glues. Do you mean you want to be able to collect the ingredients in the woods for some reason? Is there a particular type of chemical or other component in wood glue you are trying to avoid?
Also, what are you glueing to what? Right now, I just know that you want a desktop and you don’t want to make legs. Does that mean you are setting this desktop on the frame from your old desk? Are you gluing boards together on edge? Are you don’t joinery? I’m pretty sure that the type of gluing is going to matter, especially if you’re trying to find a glue that has undergone minimal processing.
Yes, sorry! I had all that in there at one point… much too tired. Basically I want to avoid using polyurethane and PVA (a tall order, I know).
I haven’t ordered the lumber yet, but I plan on getting some 5/4 S2S soft maple.
I wish I had the tools and skills to do joinery, but not yet. I’ll be rough sanding the edges to get rid of whatever chafe is left and to fair them, then I’ll glue them edge to edge. I’ll then sand down the rest of it so that it’s all pretty much true, and finish with a spirit varnish.
Finally, I’ll drill pilot holes for the screws that attach it to the base of the desk.
Thanks for the details! I’m sorry to say that I don’t know enough to help you very much. I have never tried looking for or working with non PVA wood glues. I suspect that even with PVA glue, you would have a hard time getting boards glued edge to edge stay at all true, so keep in mind you are likely to end up with some warp and unevenness that may show up later…. Actually I just had an idea that I think would work well - get/borrow a pocket hole jig and use that to do your edge joinery. A pocket hole jig is really a great tool that is easy to use. Check this out. Kreg is just the most common brand of pocket hole jigs. There are cheaper ones out there, although I can’t speak to which other brands are good/bad.
Thanks for your input! I do have some wood screws lying around, so that might be easier then messing about with glues. Cheers!
In a couple other responses you mentioned not having the tools for joinery. I think it may be beneficial if you tell us what tools you do have access to.
PVA is going to be one of the strongest wood adhesives you can find aside from construction adhesive and I wouldn’t trust any furniture only held together with glue.
Typically you are going to use the glue in conjunction with either joinery or metal fasteners.
I have a drill (with bits), screws, sand paper, and a hand saw. I think now I will use pocket holes in conjunction with glue, or perhaps buy some dowels and use those.
Definitely go with pocket holes over dowels. Speaking from personal experience dowels are very hard to line up especially with a hand drill instead of a drill press.
I don’t know what your expectations for the desktop are, but with the tools you have at hand right now a rustic or farmhouse style desk would be the most reasonable expectation. Prepare to put in a lot of work and have small gaps between each board and a non-flat face.
To create a top that is perfectly flat and has no gaps is virtually impossible with the tools at your disposal.
If you truly want to build the desk yourself with the tools you have AND you need it to be perfectly flat you could do your absolute best to build it flat and tight and then place a glass top over the wood. Then you can admire working over something you built yourself and if you acquire the tools and skill in the future to make the top flat and fill the gaps you can refinish the wood and ditch the glass.
You may want to look into community woodshops or tool shares in your area. If available they will usually require you take a couple safety classes with their teachers so you know how to use all of the equipment and then a monthly fee for access to the tools and bench time.
Try bone glue: https://www.fine-tools.com/G10008.html
My dad always had a tin can of glue simmering in a pot of hot water, in his workshop, “back in the days”, 1960s.
Perhaps a silly question but… if you really want to avoid synthetic glues, maybe figure out a way to use screws? I’m not joinery expert but it seems like the best way to avoid synthetics while also being very mechanically stable.
Indeed, however my concern would be spilt liquid getting in between the boards. There’s no where else to eat in my rental other then at my desk, so I basically live there. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ
Have you tried sokui? If you have leftover asian rice, all you need is a blender. It was historically used in Japan to supplement traditional furniture and housing wood joinery.
Thanks for the link, I’ll look into that! However, I don’t have the tools to make an attempt at joinery.
Have you checked out hide glues yet? Hide glue is a type of adhesive made from boiling animal hides. It has a pretty long history. Titebond sells some under their brand, and Old Brown Glue is also a pretty respected brand. It’s a bit more expensive than Titebond 3, but that’s not too bad imo, especially since it’s natural and relatively easy to find. You could try using granules instead of the ready-made stuff, but it might not be worth the hassle for a one-time project. Plenty of information on usage on yt if you want to look into it, the search term has a exceptionally high percentage of old geezers which is interesting but also expected.
Hot hide glue or fish glue maybe? For finishing you could also consider shellac or an oil finish.
I second the use of shellac. I’ve been using shellac on a maple cabinet project I’m working on right now.
Maple is a proper bitch to sand because it’s so hard. I wouldn’t recommend sanding higher than 180 at most of else you risk glazing the wood, which makes it hard for your finish to work. Also any alcohol finish is going to dry extremely quickly and be very finicky to work with… Particularly on a very large continuous surface like a desk. It’s not impossible, but absolutely, definitely, practice first. Figure out your brushes, your mixture, your technique all ahead of time. When you hit that desk there’s no turning back and it’s go time.
I tried over a dozen different oil and gel based stains for the project, and shellac was far and away the best looking, due to maple’s exceptionally tight grain, and high tendency to blotch.
Good luck! I really enjoy working with maple, but boy is it a challenging medium.
Don’t use shellac for tables or furniture you sweat on. It’s not water resistant. I had an old desktop with shellac finish, the finish started to dissolve on the parts where my arms rested.
