Expert: Jamie Yocono - 9/7/2007

Question
I'm in the process of making a 42" wide by 70" long maple counter top for an island kitchen. Using 6/4 rough hard maple, ripped to 2-1/2 to 3" widths(which will be the top) and full 70" long. Plan on jointing the edges and thickness planing to ~1-3/16. Is Titebond III enough? Any suggestions to make the joints last?  Thanks,
Rich

Answer
Hi Rich,

A while ago, I was teaching some Continuing Ed classes for the University of Akron, and a student of mine wanted to do the same thing you're doing- make a butcher block top. We had a long discussion about glues, and we decided to run a few simple tests. We took a few samples of wood and glued them together with gorilla glue, epoxy, Titebond II and regular Titebond.  After they were dry, we tried to separate them with a whack of a hammer, and later, soaked them in water.

The epoxy worked best, and although it's the most expensive, I feel like it would be the best solution for you. Gorilla glue was OK, but makes a huge mess, and even though it has some gap filling properties, the gaps are filled with foam, so it's not strong whatsoever. The Titebonds were OK.

I have a slight bias against Titebond, and I'll tell you why. On the TBII bottle, it says you need to shake it to mix it up. At least, the last bottle I purchased said that. Now- that stuff is thick, how are you supposed to shake it? I usually roll the bottle around the floor, hoping it mixes enough to work. But how do you know? It's sort of like trying to shake a milkshake- it just doesn't move.

Cost wise, epoxy can be a little more reasonable if you purchase it in bulk. I bought some from West Systems a while ago, it was great stuff! Here's a link: http://www.westsystem.com/

A few suggestions for your project- if you have a biscuit joiner, you might want to put a few biscuits in your top, for alignment purposes. Once you start gluing together all those strips, they're going to want to squirt up and out as you clamp them. Or you can glue 2 or 3 together at a time, in small sections, and then your final glue up will be of only a few larger pieces. That's much easier to handle.

Back to the glue, if epoxy is too expensive, I'm sure you would be fine with the Titebond II, a lot of people swear by it. Don't they have a newer Titebond that is even MORE water resistant? I just attended the big wood show in Las Vegas and they were giving away free bottles of it. I didn't take a sample, so I can't say much about it. But you could look at their website.

Or some of the woodworking magazines run articles about adhesive comparisons, you might want to do a search and see if you can find a recent article.  I like Titebond Brown glue, which is tinted so that it doesn't leave a light glue line. But it's not really waterproof at all. I use it for everything- cutting boards, furniture, toys- you name it. I'm satisfied with it.

Last thing- I am not trying to dissuade you in any way, but there is a butcher block manufacturer who sells these tops in a variety of sizes, and they are pretty great. I had a small kitchen cabinet job where the family wanted a Maple top, and I ended up buying one of these, instead of making it myself. Check out http://www.johnboos.com/

I've learned to pick my battles, and I've gotten to the point where I purchase some components if I can. For example, I used to make my own cabinet doors and drawers. But if I have a big job, it's much easier and cost efficient to buy them from a door/drawer company that specializes in them. Honestly, I can't build doors as inexpensively as they make them. So if I had a butcher block top I needed, I would consider looking at a Boos top. I saw them on sale once at my lumber yard for less than I would have paid for the materials.

OK, good luck, sounds like a nice project. Please feel free to write back if you have any further questions after reading this.

Jamie Yocono
Wood It Is! Custom Cabinetry
Las Vegas, NV
www.wooditis.com