Pro tip: my neighbor saw me fixing a wobbly chair and said I was using the wrong glue

I was trying to fix a kitchen chair leg that kept coming loose. I had it clamped up with some basic white craft glue, the kind my kids use for school projects. My neighbor Frank, who does woodworking, came over and just shook his head. He said, 'That stuff is for paper, not for joints under stress. It'll fail in a week.' He was right, it had failed before. He told me to get some proper wood glue, like Titebond II, because it soaks into the wood fibers and makes a bond stronger than the wood itself. I bought a bottle for about eight bucks and redid the repair. That was six months ago, and the chair is still solid as a rock. I had no idea there was such a big difference. What other simple glue mistakes do people make around the house?

3 comments

3 Comments

jennifer_west3mo agoMost Upvoted

Feel your pain on that one. I used super glue on a ceramic mug handle and it just shattered again. Turns out you need a special epoxy for stuff like that. Learning about glue has been a whole thing.

the_blair3mo ago

Read somewhere that super glue gets brittle when it dries. Epoxy stays flexible so it holds up better.

leo2381mo ago

Yeah the super glue thing got me too. I tried fixing a broken garden trowel handle with it and the whole thing snapped right off the next time I used it. Epoxy is definitely the way to go for stuff like that. Also learned the hard way that gorilla glue expands like crazy if you use too much, had it oozing out of every crack on a picture frame I was trying to repair.