What's a good general purpose wood glue?

[Chris Friesen]

There was a post a while back about yellow glue being difficult to repair. You have to consider what you're gluing. It's unlikely that a panel will need to be re-glued.

Last year I repaired a table top that had been glued with yellow glue. I had to scrape off the old glue and take the edge down to clean wood before I could glue it back up again.

Makes me seriously consider plastic resin, resorcinol, hide glue, etc.

[Howard Acheson]

I will generally use a standard PVA for most interior glue ups except for panels. PVA's are prone to developing a raised gluelline over time. For panel glue ups, I use a urea formaldehyde like Plastic Resin. For outdoor projects, I will use an ANSI Type II adhesive. I see no application for an adhesive that is truly waterproof in normal woodworking.

For chairs I exclusively use a slow set, two part epoxy due to its superior strength and slight flexibility which will allow racking forces without failing. Epoxy is also a good choice for many repairs because, unlike Gorilla Glue, epoxy is gap filling with strength. Gorilla Glue does not fill a gap with anything more than weak foam.

For composition panel laminating I use a solvent based contact cement which I also use for plastic laminations.

[Eddie R Norton]

I like Titebond and use it for most projects but if I want to be sure of the joint stength and/or it is an assembly that will require some time, I aways use Weldwood (by DAP) plastic resin glue. It does take 12 hours or more to cure but at around 70 degrees you get nearly an hour for assembly. And I have never had a Weldwood joint fail. I just glued up a large pegboard today which took about an hour to get assembled. I was really glad I had decided to use plastic resin instead of casein.

[Scott Vigder]

My build requirements are all indoor projects, so I use TB II or ProBond. I prefer TB II vs TB I as TB I is too runny. For my projects, TB III is overkill.

[Howard Acheson]

Last year I repaired a table top that had been glued with yellow glue. I had to scrape off the old glue and take the edge down to clean wood before I could glue it back up again.

Makes me seriously consider plastic resin, resorcinol, hide glue, etc.

You need to have virgin wood for those adhesives also. Hide glue is only good on joints that were originally glued with hide glue. If they were glued with any other adhesive, you will need to get to virgin wood.

The only adhesive that has a chance with less than virgin wood is slow set, two part epoxy. That's the reason it is most often used for repair and rebuilding of older furniture.