Hide Glue vs normal Titebond

[redir]

If you still have some LMI white then it's not good for anything but household use. It's been some time since they did away with that. I liked the stuff. I'm gluing back braces on a guitar just today with the LMI yellow. It's ok but I don't see it any better then Titebond. I really have no use for the black light feature of it.

Having said that I suppose it might be interesting to see how sloppy I might be. But I have learned over the years two things, one, to use the right amount of glue (not much) and two, how to clean up pretty good.

[mirwa]

No matter the glue, the glued joint is only as good as the person doing the job. Make the fit lousy and no glue other than an epoxy is going to hold it together, make the joint faces match and tight any glue including rubbish bottled liquid hide glue will work perfectly.

On a side note,

I experimented in making my own hide glue for a while there as I have lots of animal skin offcuts left over from doing reskins on mandos, banjos, djembes etc, what a stinky mess with wishy washy results, charge me anything you want for granulated hide glue and I will happily pay it for clean and consistent results

Steve

[Victory Pete]

Originally Posted by redir

If you still have some LMI white then it's not good for anything but household use. It's been some time since they did away with that. I liked the stuff. I'm gluing back braces on a guitar just today with the LMI yellow. It's ok but I don't see it any better then Titebond. I really have no use for the black light feature of it.

Having said that I suppose it might be interesting to see how sloppy I might be. But I have learned over the years two things, one, to use the right amount of glue (not much) and two, how to clean up pretty good.

Yes I know it is expired, I put a date on all my glue. I like to keep it around even when expired. I have some old Fish Glue also. I agree about cleaning up glue, I have a system I use to make it an easy job.

[Alan Carruth]

Titebond and the ilk in the bottle are actually suspensions of drops of non-water soluble glue in water; like mayonnaise. In the joint the water 'carrier' evaporates, and the little drops of glue stick together. Water alone will usually make the wood go to mush before the glue lets go. Acetic acid will break the glue down relatively quickly. It seems to work better in a thick glue line than a thin one. You have to watch out: it reacts with iron and if there's any tannin in the wood it stains it black. Permanently.

Learn your wood working with Titebond, then work on learning to use hide glue.

[John Arnold]

If the shims are still firmly attached after the steaming, it is not necessary to remove them. But I generally do anyway, just to avoid stacking shims when doing a reset.

[Bruce Sexauer]

My first 30 or so guitars were put together with Elmer’s Glue-all. Haven’t heard about any resultant trouble. My last 200 guitars were put together with HHG, mostly. Still haven’t heard about resultant trouble. I don’t know what I used for the middle 80 guitars, but they haven’t been any trouble either. Maybe glue isn’t such a major factor. I love using HHG.

[tadol]

I think much more agreement can be had about the glues to avoid - polyurethane, epoxies, and most any exterior-grade waterproof product -

[Alan Carruth]

IMO Elmer's Glue All is the equivalent of bubble gum; it doesn't hold things but you can't get it loose either.

I once got in a nice violin to repair. The top was effectively 'flat' on the bass side from end to end, and I assumed the bass bar ends had come unglued with the strings on it in the case. When I got the top off the bar was actually still glued down at both ends. It had been repaired with something like Elmer's glue back when it first came out. The glue line had deformed in shear, allowing the ends to slide along the top without coming loose. By the time I got it cold creep had set in, and it took quite a lot of work with hot sand bags, and a very strongly sprung bar, to get most of the original arch back into it. I suspect the bar had not been very well fitted , and the glue line was thick to begin with; otherwise there would not have been enough glue.

I also saw similar displacement on a production guitar top between the 'popsicle stick' brace and the top where a rubbery white glue of some sort had been used. The top was cracked along the fretboard edges on either side, and the neck has shifted in by more than 1/16", and headed south. The inside of the top looked like it had been sanded with a garden rake; level; but hardly smooth, so the glue line was thick, and the poor integrity of the surface itself didn't help. Again, the glue line between the brace and the top was intact, it had just shifted.

Finally, I've seen bridges shift forward, plowing up a ridge of finish in front and leaving a bare line behind the bridge.

I really don't like Elmer's glue. Titebond has been modified to have less creep; not 'no' creep, but less....

[John Arnold]

I have been using Titebond for instruments for over 40 years, with no evidence of cold creep yet.

[charles Tauber]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

The inside of the top looked like it had been sanded with a garden rake...

I laughed when I read that.

I used to have a 1973 Larrivee classical, built by larrivee, that had the interior of its top that looked/felt like it had come straight off of a 60 grit thickness sander. It wasn't a great instrument.

I've attended several presentations that Sergei de Jonge - one of Larrivee's first apprentices - gave. One of the interesting things he talked about was that if the interior surfaces are too smooth, it tends to give an instrument a "brash" sound. He stated he sands the interior of classical guitar backs to 120 grit and steel strings to 80 grit.

He had some amusing tales of roughening the interior surfaces of guitars, after the fact, including, in the mid-1980's, Liona Boyd's high-end Yamaha, that had the interior not only finished but buffed. He poured about a litre of lacquer thinner in the interior to remove the lacquer and then put fine sand in the guitar and shook it to remove the color on all the interior surfaces caused by the thinner bleeding color from the back onto everything. He, and Ms. Boyd, claimed it sounded much better after that treatment.

[6L6]

I think I read that Collings recently stopped using hide glue on their Traditional Series. Could be wrong about that though...

[Victory Pete]

I am tempted to try Hide Glue or at least Fish Glue, but it seems Titebond is the "Workhorse" of glue here.

[redir]

The current instrument I am building so far I have used HHG, LMI Yellow and CA. That's pretty typical for me.

As for HHG what I do is add salt to it to extend the open time for things like gluing down the back. The formula I use is not a liquid hide glue, it still has to be heated but it extends the open time significantly. I've done 3 tests on this glue and in every one the wood breaks before the glue line does.

[Alan Carruth]

John Arnold wrote:
"I have been using Titebond for instruments for over 40 years, with no evidence of cold creep yet."

I've been at it at least that long, and haven't had any problems with Titebond in my builds either, but I have seen 'evidence' of cold creep. That's why I went to using hide glue for a lot of things. Properly used either is fine.

[dadfad]

I'm asking if anyone knows which would be the best glue to use for repairing a broken head-stock, Titebond Liquid Hide Glue (not warming-pot hide glue) or Titebond Original Wood Glue. The break is clean and broken in such a way as to give a good sized gluing surface.

In an old Stew-Mac video Dan Erlewine uses Titebond Liquid Hide Glue, but I'm concerned normal environmental heat and humidity could effect it and that Titebond Wood Glue might give a stronger repair.

(I remember waaay back in high-school shop-class our teacher saying a wood glue joint, back in the old Elmer's Wood Glue days, was stronger than the wood itself. I hope he was right!)

So I'd appreciate any advise from someone familiar with both. (I do have quite a bit of experience doing more simple guitar repairs and restoration like repairing top-cracks, neck-resets, etc but not this one.)

This guitar, an old 1950's Gibson LO-1, is important to me as it was my mom's guitar and the instrument that started me playing fifty years ago. Prior to this break it was in extremely fine condition. I broke my own rule by not transporting a nice guitar only in a padded hard-shell case and Instant-Karma got me!