gluing lignum vitae

[Stephen Reid]

Hi all. I've got a wooden smoother that I'd like to resole.It's a great old plane with a tapered laminated iron that takes a great edge.After truing up the sole the mouth has gotten fairly big so I think a new sole is in order.I have a nice piece of lignum 4x24x1/2 that I got at LV 4 or 5 years ago for this purpose,but never got around to this project.Now that it's on the front burner I've been wondering how well this will glue to a beech plane.Anyone have any tips for gluing this stuff?Thanks Steve

[Jim Koepke]

I think one of the common practices is to "wash" the surface of oily woods with acetone or lacquer thinner to remove the oils just before gluing.

Last similar wood I glued, was cleaned with lacquer thinner and epoxy was used. It has held. Rosewood plane totes have been also glued with this method. I have used Tightbond on rosewood in the past, but prefer epoxy.

jim

[Steve knight]

nothing really sticks too it. that's why it is so good. acetone just draws the oil to the surface. but the glue joint may hold ok with enough surface area. if the patch is mortised in it may stay fine. the one glue I found that worked great was the hot melt poly PUR it made a stronger then wood joint. but it is not practical if you don't won the system.

[Brian Ashton]

When I get a wood such as LV where I suspect there are oils, extremely hard and un-absorbent smooth surfaces... I use epoxy but I also prep the surface for the glue to have better adhesion. I will scuff up the surfaces with a course sandpaper so the glue has all sorts of micro crevices and ridges to bind to. I will also throw some very fine sawdust in with the epoxy. Not enough to thicken it but enough to have fibre running throughout. This will dramatically increase the strength of the epoxy. Epoxy on it's own is surprisingly fragile. Then work it into both surfaces in all directions to force the epoxy as deep as possible into what ever pores there are in the wood. That's been the best method I found so far.

[Bob Smalser]

Tropical Hardwood Epoxy Adhesive

http://www.rotdoctor.com/products/thea.html

[David Keller NC]

Hi all. I've got a wooden smoother that I'd like to resole.It's a great old plane with a tapered laminated iron that takes a great edge.After truing up the sole the mouth has gotten fairly big so I think a new sole is in order.I have a nice piece of lignum 4x24x1/2 that I got at LV 4 or 5 years ago for this purpose,but never got around to this project.Now that it's on the front burner I've been wondering how well this will glue to a beech plane.Anyone have any tips for gluing this stuff?Thanks Steve

Stephen - While it is possible to entirely re-sole a beech plane with a tropical wood like LV or rosewood, that's not all that desirable. The reason is that the tropical wood will likely have very different expansion/shrinkage properties than the beech with varying moisture levels, and that will have a tendency to break a glue bond, no matter what glue is used.

For that reason, I'd recommend that you mortise in a patch for the mouth, and ideally use beech, or if you can't get any beech, a domestic hardwood with similar stability properties. I've successfully used maple for this purpose, and it's readily available. There are lots of descriptions of the process in books, mags, and perhaps even on SMC.

[Stephen Reid]

Thanks for the input guys.I hadn't considered the different expansion rates of the different woods ,only the gluing problem.I have lots of maple so I'm thinking now I will use that instead.Back to storage for the lignum!Bob Smalser has an excellent how to in the faq using maple so I'll follow that.I have a stanley #27 that needs a new sole to so I'll see how the first one goes.Thanks again.Steve

[Mike Henderson]

I've glued lignum vitae for a number of applications including mallets and for a thin sole on a plane. I know I used Titebond III for some of them (maybe most) and never had a problem. The mallet, especially, gets a lot of shock and there's no hint of the glue letting go.

I like Lignum vita for the sole of a wooden plane because it's hard and slick. Something like beech with wax will work fine, also, but I certainly never experienced any glue failure, and I've put lignum vita on new (shop made) planes and resoled antique planes. If you don't put the Lignum vita cross grain, the differences in expansion should be small enough that the flex in the glue will accommodate it. The lignum vita I put on planes is fairly thin, certainly less than 1/4 inch - maybe 3/16".

I didn't do any thing special to prepare the lignum vita but I did glue fairly soon after cutting it (within hours).

[Update: I added pictures of the mallet and two planes. The large plane is intended for shooting so it has lignum vita on both the sides and the bottom. On the mallet, I didn't make the whole mallet of lignum vita because the lignum I had at the time wasn't long enough and there was no advantage in making the handle out of it. The core is maple.]

Mike

[Stephen Reid]

hmmmmmmmm....on the other hand what do I have to loose?These types of planes aren't hard to find around here.Every antique store is full of woodie's.I think I'll try the lv .It's not like its a regular user just a something to try.And I really like the upside of this wood, hard hard hard and slippery.Wait that sounds some how dirty .Well you know what I mean. Steve

[Sam Babbage]

I don't think you need worry about differing expansion rates. ECE make thousands of wooden bodied planes with LV soles and I haven't heard of any delamination issues.

[bridger berdel]

I don't think you need worry about differing expansion rates. ECE make thousands of wooden bodied planes with LV soles and I haven't heard of any delamination issues.

yabbut they use a WILD joint between the two....

[Stephen Shepherd]

While it is 'popular' and 'common' to wash oily woods with solvents, this will actually cause problems by causing the 'migration of extractives'. Once you clean the surface the oils start moving and will often interfere with gluing and finishes.

Therefore do not was the woods, but you can prepare the surface by rubbing a clove of fresh garlic on the wood prior to gluing. This etches the wood (and metal too) before applying the glue. And I would recommend liquid hide glue as Hide Glue is the best woodworking glue ever.

Stephen

[george wilson]

I made a boxwood plane many years ago,and soled it with LV. It never did come loose,and I used an ordinary adhesive like white glue at the time.

The WILD joint in Ulmia plane bottoms consisted of flat bottom slots cut at an angle across the bottom of the plane,with matching slots in the LV sole. This looks tricky from the outside of the plane,but is just seeing the slots on an angle. I haven't seen the ECE joint. Probably made along the same lines,though the shapes of the slots could be different.

[Fred Preston]

here's a link to some ece planes.
http://www.traditionalwoodworker.com.../cPath/2_4_331