Glue question

Roger Tulk

Member
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Location
St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
I use yellow carpenter's glue for most of my glue ups, and have, really, no joint failures. However, I am gluing blocks to the inwales of my canoe, and this will require some gap-filling, no matter now carefully I match the block to the inwale. So, I am thinking about Gorilla Glue, or similar. When this expands, will it have the strength to hold the seats up? The strain will be a shear strain, as the force on the joint will be straight downwards, and any gaps will probably be on the order of 1/32" or less. I intend to reinforce it with a pair of #14, 2" screws as well, but I don't want the seat suddenly plunging to the bottom of the canoe when I am half a km out on Lake Ontario. Will the Gorilla Glue do the job, or something else, or something else altogether?

Thanks.
 
So, I am thinking about Gorilla Glue, or similar. When this expands, will it have the strength to hold the seats up?

No. https://woodgears.ca/joint_strength/gorilla_glue.html

Personal recommendation would be to glue in some really thin shims to fill the gap or (better) to use sandpaper to "lap" the pieces together (basically stick sandpaper to the boat side and then lap the block to that) before gluing to get a gap free joint.

Failing that mix some wood dust into epoxy and use that - it won't be as strong as a wood-wood bond but is probably the next best thing.
 
When I helped my dad build several boats many years ago, we would not use anything except resourcinol glue, but it did not have good gap filling qualities.
 
The foam of Gorilla Glue has almost no strength, so once it becomes gap filling, it is little more than calk (and I would choose other things for calk).

I haven't done tests on the strength of epoxy, but it does great as a gap filler, especially when mixed with some sawdust or other bulk.
 
I just hung the seat on my canoe from the inwales with 3/16" carriage bolts run through dowels. No extra blocks to glue up or fail.
 
There are gaps and then there are gaps. But you only have two options that I see. Better fit or use epoxy. Epoxy is the only glue that I am aware of that has gap filling ability.
 
NO

I also say NO - to using ANY adhesive to hold the seat in place - there is NO adhesive I will recommend.

The seat needs to be supported is "some" fashion - preferably from "under" the seat.

In the following myriad of images the vast majority of seat are in some way supported - most from under the seat.

https://www.google.com/search?q=can...ved=0CAYQ_AUoAWoVChMInc7mldb-yAIVhW8-Ch3owwrP

In fact - you do not need any adhesive at all and you don't need to worry about gaps.
 
While I hang seats on stainless steel bolts from the gunwales these days (it's easier), I did mount seats on blocks fitted and epoxied to the inside of a canoe. I was a bit concerned that they might come loose, and sure enough, one of the eight blocks did break loose. To be fair, it took 35 years before it did loosen, and then I just cleaned up the surface and re-epoxied it back into place. It has been fine for several years after that.
 
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