My grandson and I are attempting our first go at making a birch bark handle and don't know which type of adhesive to use.
I have about 1 quart of outdoor wood glue on hand but if 2 part/slow cure epoxy is the way to go I will buy more as I only have 5 minute epoxy on hand.
Any advise is truly appreciated!

Thomas C. Kuzia
Beacon Falls,Ct

I'd use the slow cure epoxy for a few reasons, the first being that few if any have had success building a grip on a mandrel, the material will separate on you somewhere else than your joints, I have best results building off the blank, turning the grip using the blank as your mandrel, the extra bonding to the blank helps. Secondly the slow cure epoxy gives you the time to do all this bonding of the the blank and each to other.

Thanks for the info and tips Spencer.
We're still in the process of cutting out and preparing the bark and finding it's a lot more time consuming then we thought it would be.
It took us about one month to find some white birch that was being cut and split for firewood.
There are enough white birch trees near by but finding dead trees isn't easy to find.
It's a fun project to do with my grandson who is 19 and loves to fish,,,,and now build a few fishing rods too!
Thanks again,,,

Thomas C. Kuzia
Beacon Falls,Ct

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2016 04:04PM by John E Powell.

I build Birch Bark grips exclusively on mandrels using Titebond III. I even core (20mm) many of them to insert a foam core to lighten the grip. If the bark disks are cleaned up well to remove loose layers, and then using Titebond, I have never had one seperate!

WOW,,,Looks like we have a real project on our hands!

After reading all of the posts I have to ask what type of shrink wrap is used?
Thanks,,,

Thomas C. Kuzia
Beacon Falls,Ct

Gorilla glue.

I do not use any shrink wrap. Never had a need for it.

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2016 04:04PM by John E Powell.

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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2016 04:04PM by John E Powell.

I have built 1-1/2 Birch Bark handles. The first one (ended up 1/2) I used epoxy like I would with cork on a mandrel. I had about 6 or 7 de-laminations. I had enough material to just put it aside and start over.
This time I used Titebond III. I still had some de-laminations but only about 3. It made a beautiful handle but I swore I would never do another one. the other day, I found my stash of material and indeed I have
enough to make another handle. I am now toying with the idea. It does not seem right to me that Gorilla glue would work because it dries reasonably quickly and I think you need a really slow drying glue to
try to penetrate all the layers. Of course I am probably wrong and it will work great....I'll give it a try. Another thought I had was to soak the birch in Titebond III to try to get some penetration. I also think I would
have to thin the glue some to slow down it's setting time and increase the penetration. More experimentation needed...

The Birch Bark I use is quite thick, 1/8" or more. It is sourced from Siberia and has very little loose layers. I am careful in the ring selection process so as to not include rings that appear likely to delaminate. Yes I do handle the material carefully as I know is can break, especially as I bore it 20mm for inserting the foam cores. I assemble the rings in glued approx 1" blocks for boring and then glue these together on the foam core. Trying to bore the entire length of the bark to 20mm is asking for trouble! I probably have a couple dozen bark handles with customers and have never had a report of failure.

I tried to source bark from other suppliers and have not found the quality I prefer.

In addition to all of the other comments, one thing that really helps to minimize delamination of the grip, is to do the grip and reel seat install at the same time on the rod blank.

Then, use a full length rod lathe to spin the rod and grip for shaping the grip.

You can destroy a blank if you don't do this correctly, but the idea of building the grip on the rod and then shaping the grip means that there is 0 handling of the grip in a non supported environment. Thus, much less chance of delamination.

If I were to do this, I would use slow drying epoxy for all of the gluing. That would include the birch bark, the reel seat and anything else that needed to be glued on the rod. I would use slow drying epoxy so that all of the glue up could be done in a single mix of epoxy.

Be safe

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/20/2016 04:03PM by John E Powell.

Good point John!