I know the use of biscuits for joinery is considered somewhat controversial in this forum. Opinions on that aside, I wondered what a guy could do to speed up the process of spreading glue inside biscuit slots.
Currently, I’m applying the glue inside one side of the slot and slathering it around with a sliver of wood. Do the specially made biscuit gluing tips for glue bottles work any better than that? Are they any neater?
Zolton
Replies
Zolton-
Plumbers' flux brushes work well for me. I apply glue to one edge of the slot and spread it to both sides with the brush. The process is fast once the brush has some wetness to it. The brushes are perfectly o.k. for spreading glue along other surfaces.
Flux brushes can be obtained from a plumbing supply house at about five cents each in a box of a hundred or so. I usually reuse them after leaving them to soak in water for a few hours. But they're inexpensive enough to be throw-away items.
Edited 2/22/2007 8:21 pm ET by DonaldCBrown
I'm not sure , but I think Lamello makes a glue bottle with different heads for the three biscuit sizes. It also meters the correct amount of glue when it is pushed into the slot. Try a Google search.
Paul
Without wanting to reopen the old debate on biscuits, I have to tell you that 90% of the time I don't spread it at all, just squeeze some glue into the slot and let the biscuit do whatever it can. Unless it's a critical glue-up, what's in the slot doesn't matter much for strength. There we go again...
David Ring
http://www.touchwood.co.il/?id=1&lang=e
I used the Lamello squeeze bottle that has a tip that will dispense glue on both sides of the slot at once. Then it gummed up. I've not replaced it yet, I just goosh some glue onto each side with a normal glue bottle. I never have spread the glue with a brush. The biscuit will push the bead of glue in front of itself on the way in. To my knowledge I've never had a biscuit failure using this method.
For what it's worth to the ongoing biscuit debate..... when using them for alignment on a solid wood panel, I don't put glue into the slot at all. (Although a little will slop in when I spread the glue onto the mating surfaces.) Then there's no swelling and subsequent telegraphing.
Keep in mind that you can apply the adhesive directly to the biscuit then insert the biscuit into the slot.
Thanks everyone for the tips on gluing biscuits. I did try gluing the biscuits themselves once a long time ago. But that didn't work well for me. The biscuits swelled up to the point that I couldn't get them into the slots.
I've been using acid flux brushes for other gluing tasks; now I'll give them a go for the biscuits. They sound like the most logical approach, and will also allow brushing out the glue on the adjacent surfaces...
Thanks again. Zolton
Zoltan
The folks at Lee Valley would be pleased to sell you a biscuit glue bottle. Here is the link. JL
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=20006&cat=1,110,42967&ap=1
Z,
Howard is correct, though........
I put water in one little dish and glue in another. The liquids are at a depth just less than half the width of the biscuits being used. I have the slotted work piece to hand; also the requisite number of biscuits plus a spare or three. There is also a handy roll of paper towel.
Dippy, dippy, dippy into water then glue. Straightaway into the slot. A quick wipe of any excess glue that has squeezed out (usually there's none) and the job is done.
The method allows biscuits to be stuck in then left to dry before coming to glue the other halves and sticking the workpieces together. No glue bottles, brushes or mess. Very rapid and no worry about glue going off too soon.
Of course, you need good slots (hence biscuiter) and good quality biscuits. Ticky-tacky will not do.
Have a look at the pics (especially jpeg 04) in 30647.31
Lataxe, biscuit-dippy
La,You just described half of the process. What about the adjoining section? Surely you don't dip the entire first section with all it's biscuits into bowls of water and glue........
Sap,
Apologies; I am a halfwit. :-)
The second half of the process involves rapid application of water and glue to the sticky-out biscuits, doing only those that need it to get the next workpiece in place (eg a drawer divider onto the side of the cabinet).
You do have to go quick - which is possible when brushing glue onto biscuits, as opposed to getting glue into slots. I use stiff artist's brushes of around 6mm or 1/4 inch in diameter. The water then glue is painted onto the biscuits in a slap/slap to each side, using two brushes and both hands.
A rubber hammer can be helpful.
When all the parts are in place, on go the clamps. Once the glue is in and the biscuit covered, this seems to slow the glue-drying down enough to allow the clamps to push everything together that last little bit. I use a glue that is not quick-grab (a white PVA generally).
Clamps are sufficient to push a swollen biscuit further into its slot, if it hasn't already gone right in, if you clamp within 5 - 10 minutes of getting all the glue on.
Lataxe
Gents,
I still haven't figgered out why ya's putting glue on biscuits? Seems to me that chocolate frosting or maybe orange marmalade would taste a lot better.
Clueless in bickie-land.....
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<!----><!---->James<!----><!---->
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"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...."
--A.C. Clarke
pz,
Wrong, wrong, wrong! Feller was asking about adhesives, and biscuits..That there sweet stuff is okay for makin' 'em slide down, but, everbody knows that sausage gravy is what makes them biscuits stick to yer ribs. I don't need any clamps, neither. After all these years, every time I bends my elbow, my mouth flies open, all by itself. I gets so tard of tryin' to splain this over an' over agin.
An' long 's we're talking about bread 'n' stuff: 'Rithmatic teacher tried to tell me some years ago, pie are square! I had to tell 'im, pie are round, cornpone are square. His face got right red, he war so embarrassed.
Don't thank me, I'm right proud to he'p ya.
Ray
Yah, I always get the cramps whenever I consume all that glue.
Ray,
Thankee kindly fer yer help, but now I is really really confuserated:
Them English blokes say to use only marmalade and such on bickies, and all y'all southerners say sausage gravy is the only thing fit fer biscuits, and them damnYankees say some differnt kinda gravy is the only thing that ain't sacrelige and then ya got them whack jobs what puts Elmer's on their bickies.... I ain't gotta a clue now on what I's rilly 'sposed to put on 'em.....
My head hurts from all this biscuit-dressing debate.....I'm stickin' to simple stuff: tortilla chips and home-made green chile salsa!! ;-)
It's all the Jolly Biscuiteer's fault.....don't ask why...it just is!! ;-)
.<!----><!----><!---->
Tschüß!<!----><!---->
<!----><!---->James<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...."
--A.C. Clarke
I have used glue in many different configurations, but with the quality of the glue today, I just use biscuits for registration (alignment) and what ever glue gets on them is gravy - so to speak. Today's adhesives are stronger than the wood itself.
the Woodshepherd
You could try a Lamello Dosicol 20 glue applicator. It works pretty good for me.
RGJ
I use a similar glue applicator that jeanlou recommends although I drilled a hole through it so glue squirts out against the walls of the slot. I lusted after the Lamello metered biscuit glue bottle that Norm uses until I saw the price tag.
John O'Connell - JKO Handcrafted Woodworking
The more things change ...
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Petronious Arbiter, 210 BC
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