I thought I would post a recent experience so nobody else suffers unecessarily. I used to use TB 2 for veneer and marquetry work. Recently wet sanded one(with just enough water to lubricate) and the veneer instantly wrinkled. Pretty much ruined it. I know there are urea glues and so on but for hobby use/small jobs what is the point. I now spend the extra dollar on TB3.

TB2 is Cross-Linked PVA and my experience with it is it needs to be fresh, not subject to low temperatures (never freezing) and best set off by heat. I've used an RF glue drying for some of my assemblies but just having it around a heat source to make sure it's completely cured is important. I've had brushes and gluing nozzles in the bottom of a bucket of water that had type II darn near harden on me.

The glue is resistant, not proof. Nevertheless, I suspect a bad bond/not enough cure time. Done hundreds of small veneer projects with TB2 with none of the issues you describe.

You f#cks can naysay me all you want. It was well pressed and cured for 2 days at 90f. The minute water hit that veneer it started lifting in the corners. Oh and btw your welcome.

Really Joel, you get 2 responses saying they have not had a problem like you're describing and instead of thinking "maybe there's another issue" you resort to cursing at us? We didn't say you're not getting a failure in your application, we're saying maybe something else is at play. Even if you bought that glue yesterday you don't know if it sat in a warehouse somewhere and went through a freeze cycle. This is a professional web site show some class, and appreciation that we responded to your post.

Cursing is fun! About as much fun as having something you spent hours on ruined in 30 seconds. Your right it could have frozen at some point before I got it. My money is on tb being yet another consumer product you cant rely on. Like minwax...or most anything woodcraft carries. As a side note I called tech support to curse at them and the guy said I was the first person ever to complain...??

I guess cursing is fun unless it's directed at you when you're trying to help. So this f*ck is still going to offer up something....... This is the ANSI Type II specification; "Type II testing involves cutting the 6" by 6" assemblies into 2" by 5" specimens, soaking them for 4 hours, then baking the specimens in a 120°F oven for 19 hours. This is repeated for a total of three cycles, and the bonds must not delaminate to pass the Type II specification." I'd say if your project couldn't stand some surface moisture the product was defective......Just saying.

I have had one failure, not veneer, using
TB3. It turns out it was a bad batch of glue,probably frozen.One good use for such glue is as a skin cream, mends thin skin quite well.

Joel,

I'll mention once again. WoodWeb is a Professional Forum. We don't tolerate people who like to curse on our forum. Your posts will be deleted then you will get banned if you don't straighten out.

You are absolutely blaming the glue in your project. What about the other variables? The veneer itself could have been dodgy. Your application and/or prep of the glue could have been dodgy. You might have not waited long enough for the glue to completely lose its water.

TB2 has been used extensively since about 1995. I've been on WoodWeb since 2000. I've only read a handful of threads on TB3 failures. The problem is almost always traced back to two issues. The glue froze or it was applied in a cold environment and wasn't allowed to cure overnight.

If you want to curse, go on one of the amateur sites and complain about Minwax products. Better yet stay in your shop and try your hardest to figure out why a project went sideways.

I put a mailbox together made from Sapele that was 3/8" thick. It was put together using only #0 biscuits and TB2. One of the biscuit joints failed on me. Only lasted 22 years outside in the sun, rain, snow, heat and cold. Must have been a bad batch huh?

If it was the glue, it must have been a bad batch. I've used TB2 exclusively on 99.9% of my projects and rarely had any failures. Only one sticks out and it was cherry that didn't have a good kiln dry and it was about 60F in my shop when I clamped it. Other than that, it's worked flawlessly.

Joel - Don't get mad, get smart!

I agree that it could have been a bad batch of the glue, or it could have been several other things. Wax, silicon spray or some other contaminant is my first thought.

I suggest you try to replicate the failure. Glue down a few pieces of veneer the same way, same conditions as your project. Then wet it to see if you can reproduce the problem. If it fails, it is more likely the glue. If it doesn't, then it is not the glue.

Continue sleuthing thru the logic chain to see where things went wrong. Please post to let us know what you find out so we can all share that info, just as we are willing to share with you what we know.

While it is easy to blame the glue, it is more important to open your mind to other causes. This will make you a better woodworker and will help eliminate problems in the future. We are often our own worst enemies.

Yeah, I hear you. Next time i'm out I'll get a fresh bottle and glue a test piece. Same veneers and different veneers. Stay tuned!

It sounds like there wasn't enough glue or the clamping was indequate, uneven, or too late. The bottom line is that the bottom of the veneer did not get adequate glue coverage.

With PVA's, there's a fine line between too much (bleed) and too little (bond) glue. Everything, spreading > clamped, has to happen pretty fast (10-15min). The big plus is the 30-60min clamp time at temperatures as low as 55f.

I've heard of folks using water based finishes on veneer bonded with the Original (or white, cannot remember - whichever cures harder than TB2) without issues. I'd been using TB2 a long time before I started veneering and have had no reason to concider using something else.

TB2 is indeed water resistant, meaning that water does not dissolve or affect the glue for occasional exposures. It does not prevent the wood from trying to swell. This swelling is what can be seen as wrinkle. When we look at such failures, we will see that the wood has actually pulled apart close to the bond itself. Under magnification (unlikely that you can see this without 10x magnification), we see a light fuzz on the glue, which shows us that the glue performed well, but the surface fibers were not well attached to the rest of the veneer. (it is like trying to glue two peaches together...you can glue the peach fuzz, but the fuzz is not well attached to the rest of the skin, so the joint fails...it is not a glue failure but a wood issue.) This happens when the surface being glued has perhaps been damaged in sanding so there are loose fibers. At other times, the swelling is so great with liquid water that the wood pulls apart...the opposite happens when drying- -the wood splits. Forces are indeed large. A proper TB2 glue joint should be 1.5 times stronger than the wood.

TB2 does not withstand high temperatures that might exist in sanding, especially with dull paper.

Our experience is TB2 is great indoors. TB3 is the Balls!

Critical places (handrails) TB3.

Just our experience.

I just posted a question on 2P-10.
But.. If you don't like the cost of TB3, you're really not going to like the cost of 2P-10.. (we've yet to test 2P-10 in water/high moisture conditions)