I need to buy some glue after making a sideboard, and I'm thinking about switching from my usual Titebond II to Titebond original. In looking around for some info I came across this exert from a thread that i though might be of interest to some. Although it's a little long, it's still (to me) an interesting read.

"I'm a former Franklin employee and worked in the technical group until March of this year. Bill, your name sounds very familiar and I'm almost positive I've spoken with you at some point. If you're who I'm thinking of you requested an informational CD after IWF two years ago after talking with Dale.

Anyways, since departing Franklin I've founded a business that is focused on guitars (after consulting that industry for a bit over a decade.) I have no industry affiliations with respect to adhesives: So here's the straight dope on the differences:

White glues were the first PVA based adhesives and had little else to them. As a result they had lousy water resistance, were highly prone to creep, and generally wound up with a poor reputation compared to hot and liquid hide glues that were dominant in the woodworking industries at the time (mid 40s.) In order to improve their performance across the board (tack, creep resistance, thermal resistance, water resistance, to name a few) tackifying resins were added. In case you're wondering, this is all that "aliphatic resin" glues consist of. I often call them resin-modified PVA's because I consider it a less confusing term. This modification would not change the color on its own, so the decision was made to add yellow dye to differentiate them from white glues and is purely a marketing strategy. I have personally used dye free II and tested low quality yellow glues from manufacturers who have done nothing more than add dye to white glue. Uninformed individuals may try to convince you that yellow was added because it provided a better match to the surrounding wood. This is simply untrue. Not to mention, if you can see a glue line it's too thick. As part of some competitive testing I performed on Gorilla Wood Glue (not the ... The type II water resistant white glue) I found that not only was it nearly colorless and clear when dried but its performance was effectively identical to that of II. If you need something colorless for an exterior application I would not hesitate to recommend Gorilla Wood Glue. III is a different animal. It was actually the end result of a project to achieve type I water resistance from a PVA as a method to compete with urea-formaldehyde adhesives. It does accomplish it, but unless you're building a cutting board, countertop, or skateboard, I wouldn't recommend it. The product is prone to creep, and there's a reason its shear strength at 150°F isn't published: it's not great, usually around 1000 PSI which equates to a 2/3 loss of bond strength.

In terms of strength, at room temperature a good white glue can cause 100% wood failure just like Original, Extend, II, and III. Under ASTM D-905, they are also tested for shear strength at 150°F at which point from best to worst the list will look as follows: Extend, II Extend, Original, II, III. All PVA based adhesives are thermoplastics, which simply means they will melt (most of them reach their melting point somewhere above 250°F.) This is known as thermal plasticity, and in case you're wondering, it correlates exactly with creep resistance. It's also the reason that as a guitar manufacturer I personally use primarily Extend and 50. They're overkill, but if a guitar gets left in a hot car I can still feel confident that it wont come apart.

I've seen the term crosslinking a lot in this thread and some confusion about how it relates to creep. Picture plain PVA adhesive as wet spaghetti noodles: If you leave them to dry they will tangle around each other and shrink a bit, and you won't be able to pull the mass apart easily. Put that mess back into water and they will separate. Crosslinking PVAs would look more like spaghetti noodles that actually fused together as they dried and if you put them into water again those fused points (just like covalent crosslinks) would not separate. However, they do not crosslink with the wood itself. Instead, they have relatively weak electrostatic interactions (known as hydrogen bonds and van der waals forces) but in HUGE numbers, which is why they still create bonds stronger than wood.

I saw Bob's name mentioned, you're welcome to contact him if you wish. I helped train him, and unlike myself he comes from the sales/marketing world and still has an obvious corporate affiliation. In my case: I'm an entrepreneur with no specific allegiance to any adhesives company aside from my father who works for their industrial division. My Dad is the reason that despite being a younger guy I have been learning about the adhesives industry for over 25 years. I do my best to keep an eye on message boards because even though it's not technically my responsibility anymore, I care about getting good information out to fellow woodworkers. Not to mention, at over 5 months unemployed and just starting to get endorsements and contract work... It makes me feel like I'm still contributing something to the world.

I'm sure I've opened a can of worms, so feel free to reply or contact me directly. I'm always happy to help.

-Hugh "

Interesting about the reduced shear strength of TB3 at higher temps. I've used plenty of TB2 but never the original, I will try it sometime. I'm also not familiar with the Extend products he mentions.

I like the Gorilla wood glue too. It does dry almost clear and feels harder and a bit brittle when cutting off squeeze out with a chisel. It's a good one for making inlay banding.

Thanks, Fred!

Speaking of which, I don't know why people use TB III for everything. Similarly, I don't know why some people use spar urethane for everything.

oh, I just remembered a job I did once. I was there for something else and the owner, a doctor, showed me all the pen impressions on his built-in desk. I asked him if he knew what finish was on it. He went over to a cabinet and pulled out a can of Helmsman. Sorry, I can't work on that with my materials. Being a spar, i.e., long-oil, varnish, it is naturally softer than a standard varnish. It's made to be that way.

I've never used T III, I generally use a urea formaldehyde when I want moisture resistance. Epoxy also works, but ti's quite a bit more expensive. Years ago (many years ago) I used resourcinal, but it's not available anymore (that I'm aware of). Probably had some health issues linked to it.

Interesting article.  My go-to glue is titebond III.  I chose this glue for the extended working time it has over the TB original or TB II.  For complicated assemblies, I use Titebond Hide glue.  TB hide glue has a longer working time than TBIII and it has a lower viscosity, due to not setting up so soon.  I also use TB extend for non-structural glue-ups and when I do not want to wait.  When working with laminations, my glue of chose is Unibond One.  It has a good working time and provides a firm glue bond vs TB provides a more flexible glue bond.   Danl

I use a fair amount of "Quick and Thick" on miters. A few years ago, Titebond did a presentation for the local club. The presenter took some poplar 1x2 and glued together the end grain. In about 30 minutes, he needed to stand and jump on it to get it to break. I made the sample wood, so there was nothing hidden. I use it for boxes and picture frames regularly.

Earlier this year, I got some Speed Set, but haven't used it much yet.

On 9/24/2026 at 3:26 PM, Danl said:

Interesting article.  My go-to glue is titebond III.  I chose this glue for the extended working time it has over the TB original or TB II.  For complicated assemblies, I use Titebond Hide glue.  TB hide glue has a longer working time than TBIII and it has a lower viscosity, due to not setting up so soon.  I also use TB extend for non-structural glue-ups and when I do not want to wait.  When working with laminations, my glue of chose is Unibond One.  It has a good working time and provides a firm glue bond vs TB provides a more flexible glue bond.   Danl

Been awhile since I did any woodworking 😅 which one is the brownest in color? I know I liked to have that one on hand for dark wood glue ups, and Titebond original for light wood species glue ups. Specially when needing a really invisible glue line, keeping in mind the tone color of the different TB's has always been a consideration of mine. I always like the TB III for the open time too.

I use TB III with no problems. Glue lines not a problem as If I do anything where the glue line shows (and the great majority it does not) the wood is cherry or walnut. As a turner I use more epoxy and CA than regular wood glue. Different story there. By the way where does anyone use wood glue with temps at 150?

150 is not that high. A closed up car on a summer day here gets that high or higher. The author of that discussion makes guitars and specifically mentions that he doesn't want to worry about his stuff getting carelessly left in a hot car. I suppose there is also some question about where the bond strength changes between room temperature and 150. Is it at 90 or at 140? Is it a sudden change or an incremental one?

I expect those kinds of questions are why they don't publish the data - who wants to have to defend their product that way? How many consumers really want to dive into data and strength curves and have to consider which version is best for their application? Very few. That is why marketing works better than data for making sales.

But you are correct - though not an extreme temperature, it is outside the likely range for wood glue to need to survive in general. I suppose I found that bit interesting because one of the first times I used TB3 was for ironing on veneer - an acepted method from well before TB3 that someone in the woodworking press said TB3 would do better. It worked, but I still prefer other veneer methods.

Edited September 26Sep 26 by JWD

FWIW, cabinet manufacturers (if you corner them properly) will tell you that temperatures exceeding 85 may cause delamination or other problems on furniture inside an unconditioned house (learned this investigating the effects of hot summers on an abandoned/bankrupt high rise condo; and the concrete floors don't like it either). However, think on it: how often do most of our constructs exposed to elevated (say, 100F or more) temperature? It's pretty rare, and usually for fairly short periods of time. Creep effects take decades in most applications (I used to build bridges: creep is a concern there, too, but the time frame is important). When you analyze the stresses in our wood joints, you find that the glue only keeps the two surfaces from sliding past each other: this is shear strength (torsion occurs inside the wood). It takes very little shear strength to hold a joint together: something like only 10% of the glue's ultimate strength is needed to hold the joint. Much of the concerns about squeeze out, temperature, clamping pressure, etc., are dealing with effects in the upper 75% of the strength, usually way beyond our real concern. I suspect marketing hype drives more considerations than real engineering limits. Recall that simple hide glues had / have lifetimes measured in centuries.

I'll disagree about the length of time it takes for glue to creep. Years ago I built a bedroom set and used PVA for the tops. The had the little ridges along the seams within 2 years. Since then I've quite using it on tops, I've never had a problem using the UF glues for that. The workbench in my shop is laminated 2" thick maple strips. I assembled it in 3 sections using UF, then when I glued the 3 sections together I had ran our of UF and used PVA. It has glue creep at those 2 seams but no where else. That's what id driving my move to Titebond original, I think it still creeps but much less than the T II I have been using for years. Truthfully, even if it takes many years to develop creep, I wouldn't want it on my table tops.

Edited September 26Sep 26 by Fred W. Hargis Jr

18 minutes ago, PeteM said:

However, think on it: how often do most of our constructs exposed to elevated (say, 100F or more) temperature? It's pretty rare, and usually for fairly short periods of time.

Depends on whether you are building stuff to last a few years or centuries. Lots of antique furniture has been stored in hot attics, barns, warehouses for extended periods. Most of my parents' furniture has seen multiple cross country moves in the back of a hot box truck - we moved in the summer when possible since my parents didn't want us to start school mid-year if they could avoid it. My sister is now contemplating moving overseas and discussing moving some of that furniture down to my place in AZ. Furniture can reasonably be expected to see 100F or more in it's lifetime on many ocassions.

If you want your efforts to be useful to later generations you have to think about this stuff. If you really want it to be useful and repairable, use hide glue. Then the problem becomes whether some future reapairer will know what hide glue is and why it's easily repaired. PVA will likely last centuries too, the trouble is it's more difficult to repair well compared to hide glue.

14 hours ago, Gerald said:

I use TB III with no problems. Glue lines not a problem as If I do anything where the glue line shows (and the great majority it does not) the wood is cherry or walnut. As a turner I use more epoxy and CA than regular wood glue. Different story there. By the way where does anyone use wood glue with temps at 150?

Pizza peels, trivets for hot pans, casserole carriers. Those items will see temperatures well past 150 degrees. 🙂

Hmmm...I've used TB III for several trivets. One that I use daily.

Seems ok but then again, the glued joints aren't on the surface with the design I used.

Very interesting discussion in this thread. Definitely didn't know how complex glue could be! Appreciate all the info and options being shared.

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/eagAAeSw7B1qUB3J/s-l1600.webp

The furniture bank got a donation of glue from the local company, Gorilla Glue. We use their PVA glue for table assemblies and various repairs. It dries to a light brown also. A crew of their employees also came last week to do volunteer work.

1 hour ago, kmealy said:

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/eagAAeSw7B1qUB3J/s-l1600.webp

Looking at the chalk tempt TB3 is 5 degrees lower than TB original and 10 degrees lower than TB2 - now that is an important plus for the product. I worked a couple years in an unheated commercial shop here in AZ, and in the winter we had trouble with being below the chalk tempt of TB2 now and then.

Information about "chalk temperature"

What is Chalking?

• Definition: "Chalking" happens when glue is used below its minimum temperature limit.

• The Process: The water in the emulsion evaporates too fast or the polymer particles fail to coalesce properly.

• The Result: The dried glue line turns a brittle, opaque, chalky white color and loses its structural strength, leading to joint failure

28 minutes ago, kmealy said:

Information about "chalk temperature"

Good info! I learned about this when I was faced with chalky residue on a small project a while back. My shop temp was simply too cool (pre minisplit days).