I am building kitchen cabinets of hard maple. Some doors will hold a single pane of glass and have mullions in front of the glass to simulate a divided-light door. I have followed the technique of Udo Schmidt (Building Kitchen Cabinets, Taunton, 2003; p. 63) to make the mullions and to fit them to the door frame. He specified using clear epoxy to glue the ends of the mullions (end grain, relatively small area) to the frame and to each other. Is this because epoxy provides a stronger bond than yellow glue in this instance? Yellow glue would be more convenient to use, but I don’t want to go back later to repair a loose mullion. Thanks.
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Replies
Epoxy works especially well on end grain and it would also be my first choice for this application.
Epoxy isn't especially difficult to use. For this job I would use the type dispensed from the small two part syringe packs that make it easy to dispense equal amounts of the two components.
I use the the slightly indented bottom of an upside down paper coffee cup as a mixing surface and ordinary flat toothpicks as stirrers and to apply the mixed glue to the components. Some people are sensitive to the chemicals in epoxies so wearing disposable nitrile gloves, typically they're blue colored, is a wise precaution.
If you use the 5 minute type of epoxy you can simply hold the parts together by hand for two or three minutes until the epoxy starts to set up avoiding clamping hassles. The epoxy won't reach full strength for several hours but it will bond tightly enough in just a few minutes to hold together.
Take it slow and easy until you get the hang of working with the epoxy and it isn't a bad idea to make some test joints before you start working with the finished parts.
John White
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