Woodwork projects: which adhesive or filler does your job need?

The woodwork section covers small builds and timber repairs — a lazy Susan, a vertical chopping board holder, filling dents in furniture, and joining metal to wood. They look like four unrelated jobs, but between them they cover the four kinds of bond a home woodworker actually needs, and knowing which one you are dealing with is what decides the product.

Wood to wood, metal to wood, filling a defect, and rebuilding a missing shape — each has its own chemistry, and using the wrong one is the usual reason a timber repair comes apart or a filled dent reappears.

Wood to wood: PVA

For timber joined to timber, a PVA wood adhesive is the right family. It soaks into the fibres of both faces and dries to a bond that is often stronger than the wood itself.

• Aquadhere Interior — for interior craft and small fix-it jobs. It is not waterproof and not suitable for structural use, which is the limitation to plan around.
• Aquadhere Exterior — an industrial-grade cross-linking PVA that bonds stronger than most woods and is weatherproof. Clamp 30 minutes for softwoods, 1 hour for hardwoods, then leave the joint unstressed for 24 hours; longer in cold, damp conditions or with dense timbers. Coverage is about 5 m²/L. It is for exterior non-structural use, is not for below the waterline or continuous submersion, and must be kept away from iron and steel in the wet glue line, which causes brown or black staining.
• Aquadhere Durabond — around 4 hours clamp time with full cure up to 24 hours, depending on humidity and material porosity.
• Aquadhere Quick Set — for small repairs where you want the joint holding sooner.

Two habits improve every PVA joint: glue both faces (in a dowel hole, glue the hole as well as the dowel, or the glue gets scraped off going in), and wipe the squeeze-out with a damp cloth immediately, because dried PVA seals the grain and stain or varnish will not take over it.

Metal to wood: epoxy

PVA needs both surfaces to be absorbent, so it is the wrong choice for a handle, bracket or bearing plate. A two-part epoxy cures by chemical reaction instead, which is why it does not mind one side being non-porous.

Product	Working time	Initial bond	Maximum strength	Rated to
Araldite 5 Minute	2–3 min at 20°C	30 minutes	16 hours	75 kg/cm²
Araldite Rapid	90 second set	10 minutes	16 hours	75 kg/cm²
Araldite Super Strong	5 minute set	30 minutes	16 hours (full cure ~24 hrs)	150 kg/cm²
Araldite Extra Time	60 minutes	6–8 hours	24–72 hours	150 kg/cm²

Those strength figures are per square centimetre of bonded area on clean, abraded steel — which is also the condition they assume. Degrease the metal with acetone and abrade the mating face, or none of the numbers apply. Across the range, epoxy will not bond PTFE, polyethylene or polypropylene; bonds soften above 60°C (80°C for Extra Time) and recover on cooling; leather and rubber need pre-testing; and cold weather extends every figure.

Filling a defect

• No More Cracks Interior Wood Filler — water-based, easy to sand, paintable and stainable, water clean-up. Drying is 1–2 hours at 1mm and 2–3 hours at 2mm at 25°C, dependent on humidity, and substantially longer above 2mm. Build deep repairs up in thin layers. When staining, the final colour only shows once the varnish is applied.
• Plastic Wood — a fast-acting solvent-based wood filling cement for repairing all types of interior woodwork. Stir the can thoroughly and slightly overfill deep holes to allow for sanding.
• No More Cracks Exterior Wood Filler — the exterior grade, for outdoor timber.

Whichever you use, apply a water-based undercoat before painting a repair. Filler and timber absorb paint at different rates, and without an undercoat the patch shows through as a dull or glossy spot even when the colour is identical.

Rebuilding a missing shape

Where a corner or edge is gone rather than dented, a filler has nothing to sit in. Knead It Multipurpose is a hand-kneadable epoxy putty that can be moulded to shape: working time 3–5 minutes at 25°C, onto the surface within 2 minutes of mixing, hardening at 5–10 minutes, sandable, drillable and paintable at 60 minutes, full cure 24 hours at 25°C. Smooth it with water or a damp cloth before hardening begins, because after that it has to be shaped with abrasives.

It adheres to timber, metals, concrete, ceramics, glass and most plastics, but not to polyethylene, polypropylene or Teflon. It cures extremely hard and inflexible, so it is not recommended for filling joints and cracks subject to movement. Set time increases below 20°C.

The projects in this section

• DIY lazy Susan — a bearing plate epoxied between a base and a board, with no screws. The metal-to-wood case.
• DIY vertical chopping board holder — dowels glued into a timber base with Aquadhere Interior. The wood-to-wood case.
• Filling dents in timber furniture — a four-step repair in about 2 to 3 hours with No More Cracks Wood Filler.
• How to fix metal to wood — the brass-handle-off-the-drawer problem, solved with Araldite 5 Minute.

Several of the upcycling guides use the same techniques on whole pieces of furniture, and Glue Guide 101 puts the wood glues in context against the rest of the Selleys adhesive range.

Safety: hazard is a selection criterion too

This page sorts the range by what the job needs. It is worth sorting it once more by what the product carries, because within each family the classifications differ sharply.

Product	Classification
Aquadhere Interior, Aquadhere Exterior	Not classified as hazardous
Aquadhere Quick Set, No More Cracks Exterior Wood Filler	Warning — H317 may cause an allergic skin reaction
Knead It Multipurpose	Warning — skin sensitisation Category 1A; skin irritation; serious eye irritation
Araldite epoxies	Danger on the hardener — severe skin burns and serious eye damage; both parts carry H317
Aquadhere Durabond	Danger — H334 respiratory sensitisation (Cat 1A); H351 suspected of causing cancer; H373 organ damage from repeated exposure; plus H332, H335, H317, H315, H319

The PVA answer is also the clean answer. For timber to timber, the two products this page sends you to first carry no classification at all — that is a positive statement from their own safety data sheets, not missing information. Most woodworking does not need anything more.

H317 runs through the middle of the table, and it is the classification people misread. Skin sensitisation is not irritation. It is the immune system learning the material; once acquired it is generally permanent, it is triggered thereafter by far smaller exposures, and it is built by repeated casual contact rather than one bad day. Wiping squeeze-out with a bare thumb, kneading epoxy putty by hand, smoothing filler with a fingertip — small contacts, every project, for years. That is the exposure the classification describes, and a box of nitrile gloves removes it.

Durabond is the one that deserves a decision rather than a habit. H334 respiratory sensitisation is a lung allergy: permanent once acquired, and thereafter set off by concentrations far below the one that caused it. H373 and H351 are about repeated exposure rather than one use. A shed with the door shut, over a weekend, with a cure still running is precisely the pattern. If the job genuinely needs Durabond, ventilate actively and wear gloves and eye protection — and if Aquadhere Exterior would do it, use that instead.

On the epoxies, the hardener is the hazardous half, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Mix on something disposable, never with a finger, and wear eye protection: Part B causes severe skin burns and serious eye damage.

Poisons Information Centre — 131 126 in Australia, 0800 764 766 in New Zealand.

Common questions about woodworking adhesives and fillers

Which glue for timber joined to timber?

A PVA — Aquadhere Interior for indoor work, Aquadhere Exterior for anything weatherproof or heavier duty.

Which glue for metal to timber?

A two-part epoxy from the Araldite range. PVA needs both surfaces to be absorbent and will not do it.

How long do I clamp a PVA joint?

Aquadhere Exterior: 30 minutes for softwoods, 1 hour for hardwoods, then 24 hours before stressing the joint. Aquadhere Durabond: around 4 hours clamp, full cure up to 24 hours.

Is any Selleys wood glue waterproof?

Aquadhere Exterior is weatherproof and suitable for outdoor projects, but not for below the waterline or continuous submersion. Aquadhere Interior is not waterproof at all.

Why has my glue line stained the timber black?

Contact between wet PVA and iron or steel — nails, fasteners or steel tools — causes brown or black staining from the reaction with rust. Keep steel out of the wet joint.

How deep can I fill in one go?

Up to about 2mm with No More Cracks Interior Wood Filler. Deeper repairs should be built up in thin layers, each allowed to dry.

Why can I still see my filled repair after painting?

No undercoat. Apply a water-based undercoat so the repair and the timber take the topcoat at the same rate.

Can I stain a filled repair?

Yes — No More Cracks Interior Wood Filler is stainable. Judge the colour after varnishing, since that is when the final colour appears.

What do I use where a corner has broken off completely?

Knead It Multipurpose epoxy putty, moulded to shape and sanded to profile after 60 minutes.

Do I need to abrade metal before gluing it?

Yes, and degrease it. The Araldite strength figures are quoted on clean, abraded metal.

Does cold weather matter?

Considerably. It extends epoxy bonding times, PVA clamp and cure times, and filler drying times. Treat every published figure as a minimum.