Hide Glue vs normal Titebond

[Victory Pete]

Originally Posted by DickHutchings

Thank you. I won't be using Titebond to glue my bridges.

I have used Titebond and Fish Glue. I have never noticed any guitar, mine or customers, that had a creeping bridge. I suppose humidity and high temperatures may induce it.

[phavriluk]

Dick, tens of thousands of guitars have had their bridges attached with Titebond without failure. Jumping to a different adhesive whose track record is infinitesimally smaller based upon someone's forum comments seems...unusual.

[Carey]

Originally Posted by redir

Yes I have. It tends to plow the finish up in front of it.

That's my experience, as well. I prefer Titebond Extend, if using a PVA glue. It dries slower and significantly harder, and in general acts a little more like the Animal Protein glues.

If you look at the Franklin Titebond literature it is recommended "for non-structural use", and a guitar bridge is definitely a structural use; quite a demanding one.

[Victory Pete]

Originally Posted by Carey

That's my experience, as well. I prefer Titebond Extend, if using a PVA glue. It dries slower and significantly harder, and in general acts a little more like the Animal Protein glues.

If you look at the Franklin Titebond literature it is recommended "for non-structural use", and a guitar bridge is definitely a structural use; quite a demanding one.

Unless it is a classical bridge, there really isn't that much tension on a bridge. The bridge plate takes most of the force. The bridge gets pushed down in front and rolls forward. It does want to lift from the back though.

[redir]

Originally Posted by DickHutchings

Thank you. I won't be using Titebond to glue my bridges.

Millions of guitars have been made using Titebond for all joints and they have no problems at all. I saw one... One! That had cold creep in 30 years of doing this.

It's perfectly fine.

There are arguably more joints made with HHG that fail than Titebond because HHG is more difficult to use and, especially in the hobby community of builders, lends itself to poor joints.

[peter.coombe]

Mmm, I will just repeat what I said in 2019 -

We argue about glue far too much.

[redir]

Originally Posted by peter.coombe

Mmm, I will just repeat what I said in 2019 -

We argue about glue far too much.

Now lets talk about 'tone wood' combinations

[nikpearson]

Originally Posted by Carey

That's my experience, as well. I prefer Titebond Extend, if using a PVA glue. It dries slower and significantly harder, and in general acts a little more like the Animal Protein glues.

If you look at the Franklin Titebond literature it is recommended "for non-structural use", and a guitar bridge is definitely a structural use; quite a demanding one.

You get a good 10-15 minutes open time, significantly longer than Titebond Original, and it does appear to dry harder as evidenced when sanding. While Titebond may not have the crystalline hardness of hot hide glue I really don’t think that creep is an issue - or sound transfer for that matter.

[RogerHaggstrom]

This summer I had a guitar, with the back glued with fish glue, back for repair. The glue seams in the bottom had come loose, probably because of an unusually humid summer.

Nowadays, I use a small amount of urea added to the hot hide glue to get longer set time. I always use clean hot hide glue on the neck- and heel blocks to secure the back, only the fish glue part of the glue line on this back was loose.

[Carey]

This was an interesting article about one maker's animal protein glue test
results: https://christianschabbon.com/all-about-glue/

[redir]

I'll have to check my Fish Glue experiment. About ten years ago I glued two pieces of walnut together and tied a weight to one end and hung the other part on a nail on the wall of a loft barn outside exposed to tremendous heat and humidity in the summer and near zero degree temps in the winter.

I've not looked at it in probably a year but the last I looked it was still holding. I have heard plenty of horror stories about fish glue delamination's and while us luthiers should build the best we can and even build in some 'error handling' expecting our clients might abuse the guitar by accident some day my guess is that it takes some good abuse to delaminate a good joint with fish glue.

[Carey]

I use and like Norland fish glue, but based on my own informal tests I think
it's definitely more hygroscopic than hide glue, and maybe a little softer in
the cured glue line- which takes some time.

A lower bloom hide glue like that one Mr Schabbon mentions
is on my list to try very soon; hopefully it'll have a longer open time
and be more forgiving than the 220g I've used so far.

[Dave in Tejas]

Four pages of a thread about glue, and not one mention of Gorilla?

[BlueBowman]

Originally Posted by Dave in Tejas

Four pages of a thread about glue, and not one mention of Gorilla?

As a non-builder of guitars, THAT's my go to glue!

Full Disclosure: I love the glue threads.