AbstractAcetals such as methylal and ethylal are shown to be particularly effective additives in improving the strength of wood boards bonded with melamine‐ urea‐formaldehyde (MUF) resins, although they show some appreciable but lesser effect on other resins too, particularly phenol‐ formaldehyde resins. They equally allow a considerable decrease in resin loading, and thus, in melamine content, on the bonded wood panel and at parity of performance. Their development as additives is then primarily, but not only, targeted at the MUF adhesive resins. One‐third decreases in MUF adhesives loading at parity of performance or equally internal bond (IB) strength increases approximately up to 50% by addition of methylal are shown to be possible by laboratory particleboard as well as by thermomechanical analysis (TMA). The reasons for methylal and ethylal behavior were studied by a variety of techniques, including liquid‐ and solid‐ phase 13C‐NMR and could be mostly ascribed to the increased effectiveness and participation of the melamine to resin crosslinking due to its now preferentially homogeneous rather than heterogeneous reactions, consequences of the increased solubility in water afforded by the acetal cosolvents. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 84: 2561–2571, 2002