Skirting Board External Corners – Wood Glue vs Mitre Adhesive?

paperclap

Hi all,

When I finally get around to fitting our skirting board, I’ve a handful of external corners to do – mainly around boxed in pipework.

I know a two part mitre adhesive is common practice these days to fit external corners… but does anyone out there use wood glue?

Or given the viscosity and longer drying times of wood glue, does it just make it annoying and awkward to use?

Asking really as I’ve got wood glue, and don’t have mitre adhesive!

A thought when writing this out. Anyone use just the super glue standalone, without the spray activator? Gives you a little more wiggle room to get the mitre right (think mitre adhesive gives you like 10 seconds?!).

Thanks!

travis-powers

This is a strange one, I always use mitre mate for skirting, you’ll get good at alignment after a couple the reason being it’s rear to get a 90 degree corner and if you use pva the joint can open up when fixing less likely to happen with mitre mate, but I always use pva for architrave just so I can use wedges for perfection 

paperclap

I’ve done the same with my architrave. Wood glue, then a panel pin from the top down.

Different kind of mitre I suppose!

travis-powers

Absolutely!
 The youngsters mitre mate everything, there’s nothing with using pva on your skirting it’s just that I’ve always got better results with superglue.

paperclap

Have you ever had much success with using just superglue (without the spray activator)?

FreeBear

Never bothered with adhesive on the mitres when fitting skirting here. Get a decent close fit, and use some lost head nails to hold the join together.

Internal corners, always scribed, and a little bit of filler to hide any ragged cuts.

paperclap

Just spoke to my cousin who is a carpenter, and he too uses wood glue and a pin when doing external mitres. But no doubt he’s using a nail gun – not a panel pin driven in with a hammer.

FreeBear, do you use a nail gun… or hammer in a pin?

FreeBear

paperclap said:

Just spoke to my cousin who is a carpenter, and he too uses wood glue and a pin when doing external mitres. But no doubt he’s using a nail gun – not a panel pin driven in with a hammer.

FreeBear, do you use a nail gun… or hammer in a pin?

Small hammer for panel pins. Big FO hammer (2.5lb) for stakes. Got a 14lb in reserve when the little hammers are not enough.

Don't use enough nails to warrant a nail gun.

paperclap

Maybe I’m thinking it’s more fiddly than it really is then! Might give it a go on some offcuts. Thanks guys!

FreeBear

Mitres on the external corners are dead easy. What is not so easy is scribed joints for internal corners. A quick guide on how to do it -> https://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/Scribed_Joints

Unlike external corners, internal ones do not have to be perfectly scribed if you are painting the woodwork. A little bit of filler will hide any imperfections.

Bookworm105

never heard of "mitre mate", only ever used wood glue and panel pins 

the secret is to cut the mitre correctly in the first place, it may not be a perfect 90 degrees