Lately I are been mostly making greenwood items such as spoons, bowls, stools, cups and shrink pots. Sometimes there’s a faux pas and I crack or split a piece, shrink pots being the biggest bugbear. It’s all too easy to put the bottom in when it’s too tight, so a crack opens and may travel, top to bottom, of the pot side.

The obvious answer to a crack or split is to remove the part causing the cracking/splitting pressure then to glue the crack/split before proceeding. However, damp green wood doesn’t seem to glue very well, no matter which glue I use. 

So, to the questions:

How should greenwood cracks/splits be glue-mended – when still green or after they’ve dried out?

Which glue is best – standard PVA; superglue; hide; epoxy …. ?

Or is the inevitable shrinkage of green wood going to make any crack or split inherently un-gluable because of the dimensional changes of drying an item from green to dried?

Any advice or thoughts welcome.