Help

[Terri]

We finished our first layer of luan and are now trying to put the finish layer of marine grade ply on our 11foot standie. We used the best "hard as nail," glue/adhesive that we could find. Thought this would work great but the first piece we put on is not adhering to the luan. It was a 4x8 sheet. We are trying to have as few seams and screws as possible in the finished wood. I need to make a quick decision on what to do next. Should I rip off the layer that we just put on and find another adhesive or should I try to put on smaller pieces and not worry about seams? I really wanted our wood siding to look nice but without a good flat bond, it looks a bit sketchy! Any advice would be great. I love the look of wood strips but not sure if our camper is too big for that.....any thought or ideas? Help!!!

[48Rob]

How are you applying pressure to the panel you are gluing on?

Without even pressure, not many adhesives will spread out and hold.
How have you prepared the two surfaces?
Are the temperature and humidity correct for the product?

What exactly do you mean by "not adhering"

Rob

[ctstaas]

Hi There, A couple of things I have done and would like to mention are: new generation of adhesives are chemically crazy and anything can be adhered to anything and are very specific as to material being adhered, There specific websites have tons of info, and I've used a 36 grit disk grinder to slightly ruff up the surfaces before gluing. Cleaning is important in between the ruffing step and gluing step.
I hope this helps.
Enjoy, Chris

[citylights]

Titebond 2 and/or titebond 3 are the preferred wood glues. Starting a teardrop project, I would buy a gallon of it.

The key to good wood glueing is surface prep and clamping.

You need a clean dry surface. Light sanding will do it. I purchased a small orbital sander to prepare my surfaces for glueing or painting. If anything looked funky with the wood, I sanded before glueing. If everything looked good, clean I did not sand.

Once glue is applied you need to clamp. Minimum clamp times are printed on the glue bottle. It also varies some by the humidity you are working in. With Las Vegas super dry humidity and heat, most everything I glued was set in 15 minutes! I did clamp some of my bent plywood overnight just to make sure.

I also used glue and screw technique. The screws provided the clamping for most of my build. Then I just didn't remove the screws.

[Terri]

Thanks guys. The problem with our build is that we have no garage or barn and are working outside. Because of the size we are not building our sides on a table then putting them up, the frame and first layer of luan are actually all on and up. My husband was able to make some homemade braces last night to hold the marine ply in place overnight and it did help it to adhere to the luan underneath. I think we have a better grip on things at this point. I may try the Tightbond product, as opposed to what we are using now to see if it works better as we finish putting the rest of the finish ply on. This site has been a huge help to me.....thanks again.

[Terri]

Titebond is amazing, way better than the "hard as nails," stuff I was using before. No problems with adhesion today at all and moving right along with the finish layer of marine ply. Thank you for the suggestion!!!