Fellow in video glues joints together and then places weight on apex to determine the breaking point.
From weakest to strongest are:

Butt joint was the weakest
Domino second weakest
Through dowel third

Tied for fourth were:
Inside pocket hole
dovetail
Outside pocket hole

Top three are:
mitre joint
Box joint
mitre joint with splines (the strongest)

Tests starts at around 14 min:



I'm a newb and I'd like your guys' opinions.

You remind me of an aeroplane en-jin-nur I know.

If you look at 14 min, he uses a holding jig so he may place a board with weights at the apex of the joint.

In hinsight, b/c of its contents, a drawer has stress from the inside and not the outside.  I think he did it in reverse and have place the "V upwards instead of downwards.  That would simulate the opening and closing of a drawer and how well the joint takes the wear.

This douchebag got exposed as a fraud when he did a video about "spontaneously combusting" oily rags in his shop. I never liked the hipster, but after that discount anything he says.

Matthias Wandel has done similar videos and being an engineer type (not sure what discipline exactly but engineer he is) he is a better source. There was another video by another guy on YT whom I unfortunately can't remember, who had a few great videos on joint strength.

Sorry OP, didn't mean to shit in your thread, but AvE basically picked apart his above referenced video and he got caught with his pants down.

Op the strongest joint you can have is a hidden dovetail with or without splines. The key is to have medium to large pins. His in the video were very small pins. The biggest point of all is to use clamps. The glue dries and crystalizes locking its self to the empty cellulose pockets in the wood. The tighter you can clamp the joint, the easier it is for the glue to create a lock to the next piece.

This pic shows a hidden dovetail.
mitered dovetail

That looks like an awesome joint, and also a PITA to make.

Mitre joint beating a proper dovetail joint my ass...

I skimmed the video to see how he managed to screw that up and was not disappointed. (expected to see fail and did indeed see plenty of fail)


Youtube 'woodworker dude' in the video didn't know jack about dovetails so he had a 'buddy' of his that he claimed was an 'expert' do the dovetails for him.

Guy doing the video should have been able to look at how skinny the pins were and see how weak the mess of a joint was that his 'expert' buddy did for him. That shit might as well a butt joint. LOL!

If the glues used are the same (and he DID use the same titebond crap for everything in the video - at least he WAS consistent on that part) -

There is no freaking way that a mitre joint ends up stronger than a proper dovetail joint. Never...




Even IF he used a superior glue (and there are many of them out there) on his mitre joint - a properly cut and fit dovetail with the crap titebond is going to beat the snot out of it every time.

I agree the guy who made the video is a douchebag but what do you have against Titebond? I didn't bother to watch the video, for reasons in my post above, but which Titebond did he use?

I'm also curious about this Titebond angst - it seems to be the go-to for nearly every woodworker.  What is better, and why?

All I heard was titebond was used on everything. If he mentioned the exact kind / type I did not catch it.

Could tell instantly by how spotlessly clean his shop was that he was not and has never been a real woodworker of any sort. His 'test' in the video confirmed as much.


Obviously you will use different glues for different applications (what exactly you are gluing together, how much working time do you want, what do want to be able to clean it up with, etc.) but...

For the little sample corners he was using there are many, many choices that would have made for a much stronger joint. He did show close up shots of each of the joints after the 'failures / breakages' and one thing that was fairly common among all of them was how (most of) the joints themselves were still fairly intact and looked as if they could have possibly been put back together again except for the broken fasteners in each type.

Example: The joint with the dominoes broke the heck out of the dominoes but the butt joint itself was still fairly undamaged. Yeah it needed a tiny little bit to clean it up (glue residue mostly) before a guy could reassemble it but it was not at all mangled beyond being able to clean it up and go again. Same with the dowel pinned butt joint, same with the regular butt joint, same with the pockethole joints.

None of that titebond he was using really soaked into those wood pores DEEP and caused the breakage to happen somewhere other than the actual joint... Not to mention that it took every joint he did forever to dry AND forgetting about the fact that he was working in a nice and comfy climate controlled shop. I wonder if he takes his Titebond inside his house with him during the colder months or just leaves the heat on in his tiny little shop to protect it from freezing. (cause that stuff IS definitely ruined if it ever freezes. There is no 'letting it thaw out' and then it somehow being 'good again' after that.)

Temperature stuff might not matter so much in a really small shop that a guy could keep climate controlled all the time so his glues (and materials) are not frozen. Depending on where you are season wise and how many square feet of space a guy is trying to control the climate in might be really cheap (small space in a zone that never really gets cold) or really, really expensive (larger space in a zone that has all 4 seasons and does get below freezing on occasion).





I freaking hate the cold.







I gave this stuff a shot a few years back and have slowly come around to getting hooked on it.

https://thebuilderssupply.com/richelieu-loctite-glue-ur-series-hkur20400


First bottle for me was the UR 2 and was tested by gluing the joint together for 2 minutes and then trying to break it.

That wood DID eventually break after repeatedly being thrown at the floor but when it did eventually break it was a noticeably bit back away from the actual joint.




After a few years of playing with it I buy that crap by the case now in the 2 and 10 flavors.

Cabinet doors is a good example here for something I would use the UR 2 for. For me, it takes about 2 minutes to assemble a 5 piece door, take the first one out of the clamping table and then clamp the newly assembled parts up. No waiting for anything to 'set' or dry. Those joints are solid and you can do whatever you want to them as soon as they come out of the clamps.

The UR 10 gives you pretty much 10 minutes of time until you are done. Their numbers are pretty much spot on in my experience so far.

Does not freeze (viscosity changes yes but working time changes no), easy to prevent unwanted sticking with how you handle different surfaces, easy to clean up using the proper solvents...

People have been using PVA type wood glues for decades without any problem. Basically any of them are stronger than the wood, as they all say.

HOWEVER, yes, there are some applications where a different glue will work better. For a butt or miter joint, a PU glue, like you linked, is better. More messy and the foaming is annoying.

For bent lamination a ureaformaldehyde like Dap's plastic resin glue (good luck finding that now) excels as does Unibond 800. Epoxy is also excellent for this.

Foe veneers Unibond 800 is superb since it won't curl the veneer, but plastic resin glue also works well.

Every adhesive, like anything else, has its positives and negatives. Some do some things better than others and are better suited to some uses. For most woodworkers, PVA glues are all they need. I use Titebond but also Gorilla because I like the translucent nature of the dried glue, I have some Dap plastic resin glue, CA, and epoxies. All have their place.