You will find here a guide to understanding how wood glue has an impact on the food safety of your woodworking projects, this is your ultimate guide to learning how to pick the right food safe wood glue. Throughout this article, I will share with you a few things to consider when you build, as well as some tips and tricks. Hope you enjoy it.
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The glue that is safe for food
You need a reliable way to ensure that people won’t get sick by using your products when you are making projects that will come in contact with food. Safety for the user should always be a priority.
Thus, so many people are more concerned with the finishes that they use than the rest of the materials. The safety of wood glue around food is just kind of assumed. You should always think about the whole project before applying it.
You should also take into account how many contacts will be made, and make a good decision based on the interaction with the food. In the end, not all food interacts the same way with wood glue. For example, hot soup will interact differently with wood glue than cold celery slices.
If you’re choosing wood glue for making food, you’ll want to ask yourself a few questions, and this will help you make good decisions. Further down in the post, I will discuss each one in detail.
- What Does Food Safe Mean?
- How Much Contact is Bad?
- Does Food Temperature Matter?
- Does Wet or Dry Food Matter?
- Food Safe Gluing Tips and Tricks
What Does Food Safe Mean?
So let’s get straight to the point with the obvious question. Food safety is actually what does it mean? I believe this is at the core of the argument because it explains why these decisions are being made in the first place.
Food safety means that when you consume food containing this material, you won’t in any way be harmed by it. As a result, no harmful chemicals will enter the food.
It seems really nice on the surface. Is it really safe to let any type of food come in contact with that glue? When it comes to food safety, knowing a few extra details can make a big difference.
Later in the post, I will elaborate on this further, but there is a difference between the types of things that interact with your glue, and the level of safety they actually provide.
How Much Contact is Bad?
When you build your projects, you also need to consider the contact between your glue and your food. The time factor comes into play here. The amount of time spent in contact will be different between short and long periods.
Every substance has a substance, including glue. It can break down over time and when other liquids and solids are introduced. In the presence of other liquids, glues will break down regardless of how good they are.
Nevertheless, the amount of time that food spends in contact with glue makes a difference in how safe it actually is. In the soup example, that amounts to quite a bit of contact for a longer period of time.
Despite this, celery may have only a few points of light contact, and those points might not be even wet. Getting anything harmful into the food is very difficult at that level of contact.
Does Food Temperature Matter?
Temperature is another factor to consider when choosing food. Glues break down at a certain temperature and lose much of their strength. In general, this is a pretty high number, but you shouldn’t get too close to it at all.
So, in certain situations, putting a scorching hot steak directly on that surface might not be ideal. Putting a hot steak on top of another hot steak is also a bad idea since it can eventually wear through if you keep doing it for much longer.
Heat degrades the properties of wood glue, such as its ability to stick to surfaces, to be strong, and to be safe for contact with food. In general, you should take a break from heating your wood joints every now and then.
Does Wet or Dry Food Matter?
Lastly, consider whether the food you’re going to glue is going to be wet or dry. Foods that are dry will affect glue a whole lot less than foods that are wet, simply due to their contract amount.
Put yourself in the position of eating pretzels. Almost no pretzel will actually touch any glue, and a dry object up against another dry object won’t transfer much information.
The chance of pulling something from the glue is much greater with something like a dip because there is so much contact. Food with moisture is much more dangerous to make projects for than dry food.
Food Safe Gluing Tips and Tricks
Using a wood glue that’s considered food-safe can be difficult, but these tips and tricks will make it easier, and you will be more successful.
- You will make less contact with the glue line the better the joint is, and the finer the glue line will be.
- It is very important that you take the time to thoroughly prepare your surfaces before gluing them. That way, there will be no large pockets of glue that will show up on your final product.
- I would not recommend just choosing any glue, but rather one that is food safe, which I will discuss in the next section.
- It is possible to design your project so that there are as few joints as possible that will make contact with food. This will make your project even safer.
- Making your woodworking projects food safe is much easier if you avoid using hot or moist foods, as well as avoiding long periods of time when they are in contact.
Your Starting Point
I want to recommend a glue now that we’ve discussed some of the factors that can influence the way you decide what food-safe glue to use for your projects.
This glue can be used for a variety of woodworking projects, as it is approved for light food contact. Since you’re going to construct the stuff, you’re going to know the most.
Don’t assume food safety means 100% and take good decisions. Put the glue into the right circumstances, and you’ll be better at that as well because of the knowledge I just shared.
The Titebond Three Ultimate Woodworking Glue is rated for light contact with food, and I have always recommended Titebond products. This is a good glue to use if you’re planning to make something that will have food contact.
What You Should Do
You now understand all of the different factors to consider when choosing a safe adhesive to use when your projects will come into contact with food. Are you ready to move forward? Have you thought about making a project recently?
Is there something concerning food that you are concerned about? Hopefully, this has cleared up some of that concern. There is nothing you can buy that is perfect, but you can do a lot of things to help.