Gluing up on Rainy Days?
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Looking to get a general opinion on whether people do this, or avoid this. I know that in guitar making at least, gluing up on rainy days is avoided. But then again, they work with very thin, wide pieces of wood which I imagine are more prone to cracking via warpage.
Do you guys bother to do this, or nah?
((I wish there were an option to place a poll with your post *wink wink*)) 🙂
I probably wouldn’t glue up in the rain, my workshop is inside so I glue up whenever 🙂
Probably should have worded it better :-0
I was referring to humidity on rainy days. I don’t have a barometer (?) to measure water content of the air in my work area, but I know that my local weather forecast registers 90 to 100% relative humidity on rainy days. Like for instance, today it’s rainy and at 97% RH. But I wanted to glue up a mini-bookshelf that I’ve been working on. I suppose I’m asking if this will be a problem and how would one evaluate the level of “danger” to a given project due to glue-ing up under such humidity.
I was being cheeky Juan 😉
Personally I wouldn’t worry about humidity causing problems with glue up. The only thing I’ve heard and in fact the bottles of glue I have mention on the label is caution of glueing up in cold temperatures.
This is a good question since we well designed joints are supposed to accommodate swelling and shrinkage. Swelling could cause cupping and twist that may become problematic during assembly. I really wish I had a “climate controlled” garage so the effects of humidity would be minimized.
I recently I made a breadboard panel for the front door of my Dutch style tool chest. The panel fit into the opening a bit looser than I wanted. After three unusually intense days of rain in Los Angeles, the 15″ tall panel went from being loose to being too tight! Since then the breadboard shrunk back to a good fit. I really did not expect such dramatic swelling in the pine board, but now I see how the Dutch tool chest’s cross-grain construction can present a problem. The door should really be frame and panel. Surprisingly, the carcass back and upper front, which has nailed-on (cross-grain) tongue and groove boards appears to be fine.
Something similar happened to me on my mini-bookshelves. Not sure precisely what went wrong, but I planed my shelves flat and square and cut the housing dadoes for them a week later. One of the shelves cupped I think, and after I cut the housing dado one end fit real loose :-/ I’m pretty sure it wasn’t my technique (well, who knows…)
Thanks guys, for the input.
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