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I have to ask...is the Franklin Hide Glue as good as regular hide glue. It seems too good to be true that not having to buy a glue pot, wait for it to heat up, or mess with the mixing and measuring would be as good as the original. Just wondering if anyone has ever used it. They sell it at the Home Depot oddly enough, in liquid form and in a regular looking glue bottle. I use Franklin Original for everything now but I want to try doing a couple instruments in hide glue. I want to try and incorporate some traditional practices in my guitar making, but I dont want to buy a $122 glue pot from stew mac to do it. Thoughts?

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http://www.sixgunguitars.com

Don't waste your money on a glue pot. A $10 baby bottle warmer 2nd hand from ebay will work better. I have a Phillips "Avent" model and its brilliant.




As for premix, I would not bother.

Cheers

Kim

Some of us don't even use a $15 heat pot! I use what my mentor (Al Carruth) uses: hide glue in a baby food jar, in a mug of water, on a coffee cup warmer.

I wouldn't consider the liquid hide as a hide replacement, it's not as quick and it's quite thick and the colour of dark brown brick. It also has more of a tendency to stick to everything, but won't wick under anything.

I wouldn't consider liquid hide as unsuitable for lutherie, either, though. I quite like that the stuff doesn't really run, you can spread it thin without getting it everywhere, and it's really sticky at the start. Not sure I'd use it on a stress joint, but it's definitely a nice glue for laminating up blanks and such.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

The liquid stuff tends to have a bad reputation in small shops, and a good reputation in furniture factories. I think it can be used successfully, but it is a different animal.

The hot stuff is great, and most of the problems seem like advantages once you get used to it.

This video gets a little into the fun and wonder part:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6iSvL2M ... ideo_title

probably have seen this already but here is
Some interesting results on glue strength from Fine woodworking magazine.

http://www.titebond.com/Download/pdf/HowStrongisYourGlue_FWW.pdf

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Bob, I maintain a good dose of healthy skepticism about the results of any test run by a publication who has a commercial connection with one (maybe more) of the manufacturers of the products being examined. Especially when the test ends up on what I assume is one of their own sponsors web sites as a promo.

Not saying that the products are not all good, but as we seen with the tobacco industry over many years, once the mighty dollar enters the lab, it chases away unbiased opinion. The truth is that the wholesale take over of science by commercial enterprise has seen a complete shift in scientific philosophy. Today it seems that one comes up with a desired outcome, and then, just like a lawyer, proceeds to try and find holes around the truths to prove it correct. Get enough up and over, in and around, and your on a winner despite the facts. I much preferred the old school way of scientific investigation. That was to come up with a theory, and then do all you can to to prove it wrong.....Obviously there is no money in that philosophy or they would still be doing it, but at least it revealed the facts rather than the holes.

Cheers

Kim

Liquid hide (fish glue) and Hot hide glue are two different things, one can't replace the other.

I personnally use both, for different purposes.
I use HHG for bracings, kerfings, jointing plates, rosettes, etc...
I use liquid hide when I don't want to put much water or when I can use a good clamping.
Sometimes liquid hide makes the pieces slide a lot, so when this can be a problem (like when glueing the endblock), I use Titebond original.

And has said, you don't need to buy a expensive glue pot, just find something that will keep the water around 145 and that's good.

Francis

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Actually I'm not endorsing the results. Just thought it was an interesting read.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Sorry Bob, just me taking a swipe at modern day user pay science at your expense. Really wish integrity and independence could find its way back in the investigative process though, but that would require publicly funded test tubes and it seems they stopped making them a good while back...guess you get what you pay for, and when the public purse gives nothing to science, that is exactly what they get back........... reap what ye sow pilgrims.

Jeers

Kim

35 years ago I glued the fingerboard onto my first guitar with a new bottle of Franklin Liquid Hide Glue. The next day I took off the clamps and the fingerboard fell off. The glue was still sticky. I went to the store and bought some Titebond and haven't looked back.

Another cheap hot pot user here. It requires a little more babysitting, sometimes putting the lid on it to raise the temperature, but not for too long or it overheats the glue, but most of the time it holds pretty steady in the 140-150 range.

I also don't measure the water for the glue. Just put some glue in the bottle and fill until the water level is right above the glue. That's usually just about right, but you can always add more water later if it's too thick.

I used to use a little mixing cup floating in the hot pot, with a popsicle stick to slop it on things. That's a good training method, since you can stir the glue and see how it changes as it dries while exposed to the air, and when you add more water to thin it back down. But a squeeze bottle is more convenient for application, and keeps it from drying once you know what consistency you like.

Similar approach here - $15 camping coffeepot on a hotplate. Glass marbles in the bottom of the tin pot (to moderate the temperature swings), and a plastic "holder" with hole cut in it to suspend the plastic glue bottle in the water. Oh, and I use a digital thermometer from Target - beeps when the glue hits 145 degrees fahrenheit. Works like a dream.

I too had bad experiences with Franklin LHG years ago, with bridges lifting after a couple of weeks.
Apparently LHG has a shelf life, after which it does not cure properly. Of course I didn't know that. It should make sense, as hide glue is an organic material.
There is this thread where Hugh Evans gives some insights:
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=31065

If you get a fresh bottle of LHG (and do a test with the glue before using it), no reason why you couldn't build with it. However it requires a much longer clamp time than HHG and feels a bit different. Like HHG, it has very good tack though, much better than TB1.

Hold Heet for me, it's on all day, everyday. They come up on eBay from time to time. I paid $30 for mine.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Thanks again. I did some looking around myself and also found a couple less expensive alternatives for a glue pot. I guess Rival makes a tea pot that many people are using. Also, a luthier friend of mine says he uses small glass jars instead of puting the glue directly into the pot so he has easier cleanup. I want to give hide glue a try for sure now. The dry stuff is pretty cheap online, and it looks like I can do the whole thing for $20, glue, pot, and brushes.

The only thing I worry about is gluing on the plates. Has anyone had any trouble getting the glue spread on the linings and the plate clamped down before the glue gels and becomes worthless? I was reading and it looks like you have to really work fast with hide glue, but it could me making a mountain out of a mole hill.

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I had the EXACT same experience as Laurent. 2 steel string bridges started lifting using liquid Franklin hide glue after 2-3 weeks of stringing them both up. I've never used the stuff on guitars since.
Kent

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EXCELLENCE IN SCULPTURE, CARVING, LUTHIER, ARCHITECTURAL MILLWORK AND DESIGN

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In John Mayes' Advanced Voicing video he glues up braces on a top using hot hide glue and talks briefly about it. You can see how quickly you need to work and it doesn't look that difficult. I will be using it on my next build, but I'll practice on some scrap first.

Hey John, how did you get that bridge plate to go from Maple to Rosewood and back again while the glue set up? Nice trick!

Chuck

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"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong"
- Joseph Chilton Pearce

If someone could dredge up one of the many loooong threads on hhg for the OP, that would save a lot of tippy tapping.

I glued (HHG) the back to the sides of my latest, just yesterday, and my advice is to get ready, get ready some more, and then get ready.

Goes as smooth as silk, but you've got to get ready.

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You'll probably need a heat gun to get the rim hot enough to prevent gelling when gluing plates to rims with hide glue using go-bars or rope wrapping type techniques... and some practice so there are no delays after the glue goes on.

I build with no molds, and glue the sides to the top using individual tentellones so there's no issue of open time (actually the short open time is great, because you don't have to hold the blocks in place very long before they'll stay there). Then glue the back using spool clamps. I put them all on with no glue to start, and then remove a few and squeeze glue into the gap, replacing one clamp and removing another as I progress around the rim.

Actually, you might be able to do go-bars similarly, starting with them all on and removing a few and squeezing glue into the gap. But you might get glue running down the sides inside. Spool clamps, you can have it back-down, so excess glue mostly squeezes up into the gaps in the linings, if using reverse kerf linings.

But you could also just use Titebond for the plate to rim joints.

Throw the bottle away and use HHG straight from the horse's A$$!

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

JJ, is it hotter that way?

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Franklin Liquid Hide glue has other gunk in it that causes it to go bad quite quickly. Once the glue has gone bad it simply won't dry. The shelf life is not long. That's the reason for the bad reputation in small shops, and the good reputation in big shops: if you use a lot of it, you're more likely to be using fresh glue. Even if you only bought it yesterday, you don't know how long it was on the shelf in the hardware store, so it might be too old already.

If you want the convenience of Titebond, the physical properties and "traditionalness" of hide glue, and more working time than either with none of the major drawbacks of the liquid hide glue, get some fish glue. It's hide glue, but made of fish. It's sold as a liquid, and it's stable at room temperature with a fairly long shelf life. It seems like it should be weaker than hot hide glue, but nobody has been able to prove that. Because it doesn't gel like hide glue, it has a very long open time. Like, you could probably apply the glue, go eat a sandwich, then come back and clamp it and you'd still have time. The only drawback I can think of is that you have to leave the clamps on for eight hours or so. I think fish glue is slightly cheaper than Titebond.

I use fish glue for lining, binding, gluing tops and backs to sides, and any time I'm not going to be gluing enough to justify heating up the hide glue. For most everything else, I use hot hide glue.

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Andrew Gamble
Sine Guitars
Custom Low-Impedance Pickups and Preamps
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