Poundland PVA Wood Glue

PVA is the perfect glue to use when starting out in woodworking. It's great for lots of projects, especially ones encountered early in your journey into the craft, such as practice joints, right up to chests, drawer making and edge gluing. As your experience grows, you'll doubtless experiment with other glues to suit the task at hand, but I'm sure PVA will always find a place in your shop.

I'm very interested in keeping woodworking as accessible as possible, so here I'll share with you my experience of Poundland “PVA Wood Glue”. I'm pretty sure most discount shops have their own version. £1 for 400ml is a pretty attractive price when 500ml from a recognised brand is £5.50 and the market leader is £8.78 for 473ml (Prices accurate 21.02.2022, market leader is an aliphatic resin rather than PVA but both are hugely similar in use)

Although not declared on the bottle of Poundland glue, I'm treating it as not water resistant or waterproof and not food safe. For a great deal of shop activities this shouldn't be an issue.

My test is pretty simple, an edge joint and a 90 degree face grain joint in pine. Pine is another great beginner option so it made scene to combine the two. I compared it to a quality PVA with the same joints.

Both adhesives were given overnight to cure and the test was simple. Could I break the long grain joint on the glue line and how much pressure would the 90 degree joint take? It should be no real surprise that the Poundland glue was a disappointment.

The long grain joint failed along the glue line. There was some grain that lifted out but my normal PVA stayed strong and the wood failed. The same happened with the 90 degree joint. My normal PVA created a bond that allowed me to lift the bench until it tore out the face grain. The Poundland joint just popped right of.

While it's true that joinery isn't often subjected to the intense shock loading I placed upon these joints, the test reaffirms my belief that scrimping on glue does not offer good value.