....We've used boat glue before for outside wood and for laminating wall plate for strawbale build. This has formaldehyde in it and would like to give it a wide berth....
Does anyone know please of any environmentally undamaging gluse for outside wood?

you can get a waterproof (virtually) PVA glue but it is not listed for structural work. PVA glue is as far as I know is fairly benign. The only glue that I know of for structural use uses formaldehyde (cascamite or aerolite)

(AFAIK waterproof PVA will fail with repeated wetting and drying cycles and can creep under sustained sheer load)

What defines the suitable glue depends what you want to glue together and for what purpose.

I quite like gravity, it qualifies as non toxic and is exceptional at holding things down

When I did Straw bale build we set the wall plate 200x50 central on top of the top bale, it never moved once the roof had settled it in.

Posted By: djhso external glues tend not to be warm and cuddly concoctions that you would cheerfully feed to a dog or a toddler.

+1

Posted By: djhFormaldehyde is of course a naturally occurring chemical

Ask the ants

Roofs never used to be strapped down till the 1970’s not many have ever blown off. They used to say it was something to do with lightweight trusses but conctereband coat tiles are pretty heavy.

I did strap my roof down to the walls even though it is hipped and even when straps came in hipped roofs didn’t need to be tied down.

For Straw bale probably wire threaded down and under the fourth bale down. I can’t see glueing to the top bale working with Tom’s 100 year hurricane

On Florida regs require the roof to be effectively tied down to the slab or foundations but they use very lightweight roofs.

Indeed, I don't think structural engineers like glue, since it depends on the quality of installation and isn't trivial to inspect. Mine insisted on screws for everything (well, except where he insisted on nails). He didn't object to me adding glue in addition, though.

Posted By: djh
As the man who fell off the top of the 100 floor skyscraper said "98 floors, 99 floors, I'm OK so far ..."

Old joke among climbers - Falling doesn't hurt. What happens next is the crucial bit...

Posted By: Peter_in_HungarySo as I understand the job, the glue holds together the laminated base plate. Does this base plate carry any stress of supporting weight? Or is it sitting there as a filler between the plinth wall and the bales?

It supports the entire weight of the building. Except for any part taken by some other structure.

Posted By: Carol hunterBetween plinth wall and first course of bales. It would be straight forward to do this for a rectilinear building, but this on'es round (again!) hence the laminating thin layers of wood into curves as we did for our house (with boat glue). So not actually external at all!

I'm not quite clear what you're doing. Bending thin strips to form the curve and then laminate a bunch together? So each strip is vertical?

Why not cut curved shapes out of say plywood and then stack them on top of one another to get the desired height? That way some nails or screws would hold it all together.