Do not zoom in if you have Trypophobia |
I glue wood together all the time. I don't really like nails or screws that are visible. Sure you can plug a screw hole or put wood fill into a nail hole, but you can see that something is there. I think you can use plugs in a stylistically positive way, but only if you set out to add that to your design.
Gluing wood face-to-face has challenges, edge-to-edge is common, but anything-to-end grain presents a challenge...
Also, do not google image search "trypophobia"... trust me. |
No. Not teleportation. It actually has nothing to do with quantum superposition at all. It's the holes. The wood is just a whole bunch of tightly packed straws designed to suck water and nutrients up to the more important parts of the tree.
Why does this matter? Because the holes are designed to suck up water, they tend to suck up other fluids as well. Take a piece of wood and put it end down in a cup of mineral oil with the top end not submerged and in a few days the wood will suck up the oil and distribute it along the length of the board, all the way to the top (assuming there was sufficient oil).
This means that it will suck up the glue, taking the bond-forming fluid into the wood and away from the surfaces that you want to bond.
(Partial) Solution: Seal the end.
Pictured: A high res picture of wood glue mixed with water. Someone call the Pulitzer folks. |
Recently painted/sealed end grains |
Is it perfect? Nope. Not by a long shot. There are other techniques that improve the strength and longevity of joints involving end grain. (Dowels, tongue and groove, many others).
Does it help in a pinch, recent recipients of the cutting boards would say so.
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