Official Luthiers Forum!

Visited my daughter at her repair shop and she showed me her hide glue set up. Mix a batch, put small amounts in disposable ketchup containers with lids, and freeze them. When you need one, you fire up the $19.95 leg wax melter and plop a container in - voila.

After thinking about it, thought I would give it a try. Stopped at a small local hardware store that has never "not" had what I wanted and asked if he had hide glue. He said "I have a 50 gallon drum". Yow!

Turns out 20-30 years ago there was a fad for "flaked glass" that he was supplying to some local furniture and window makers. Turns out if you brush a coat of thick hide glue on a piece of glass, it sticks like, well, glue, then when it shrinks it pulls divots of glass out of the surface. The glass surface is no longer flat, but looks like shallow waves. I leave that to others to judge.

So he gave me a 3-4 pound bag of it. The label had fallen off the cardboard drum, but the lid had "881" in yellow chalk on it.

MY QUESTION:
How can I tell what strength I have here?

Thanks

Ed

How about making some up, and see how much working time it gives you before it gels?
If it's 20-30 years old and you want to check if it's still in good condition, try letting a small flake dissolve on your tongue (you don't have to swallow) - if it's even slightly "off" or hints of being moldy, I wouldn't use it.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

You could also eat about a half pound worth and if you feel sick it might be ok and if you feel really sick it might be bad. Or the other way around. Give it a try and let me know how it works.

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Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

Unfortunately there's no easy way to know for sure. Traditionally the bloom used for chip glass was lower than what's used for woodworking, but not always. That drum could be 135g, or it could be well up in the 200's - anyone's guess.

My suggestion is to get some hide glue of a known bloom (perhaps Mamie will part with some of hers on your next visit), and mix it side by side with what you have there at the exact same ratio. Then a rough side by side comparison of yours against the known strength (firmness when gelled, gel temp observed in side by side cooling) should give you an idea of whether it is lower, higher, or in the same ballpark.

If it's good, see if they'll part with the rest of the drum and I'll take a few pounds.

Actually I do have a gauge and setup to measure the bloom. Couldn't give you an exact measurement, but can get a pretty good ballpark rating +/- 15g.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

If you have some known strength hide glue you could compare the time they take to gel and how much water it takes for each to reach the same consistency. The higher the strength the faster it gels. Higher strength glue needs more water to reach the same consistency in a lower strength glue.

Frank Ford has a good write up here: http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Luthier/Data/Materials/hideglue.html He talks about why higher gram strength hide glue is not the best choice for gluing wood. The test for gram strength only measures hardness, not adhesion strength so if you do have a very high gram strength it may not work so well.

I don't think you will be able to really find out but you can play with it and see how it works for you. When in doubt make some test joints.
normally we use about a 50-50 mix. you can start then and see how heavy the glue seems.

adding a bit more water can make it thinner and then text that mix. you sure want to see wood separate when the joint fails. I use 192 and 251

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

11 bucks a pound from LMI. Why risk it?

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Cheers
Pete

Well it is $40 to $50 bucks worth. If kept dry, hide glue flakes are considered to last forever.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bingo!
Forty bucks is nothing compared to the time and materials to build an instrument, not to mention the time involved in finding out what you have and whether it is any good. I sure wouldn't use any 30 year old glue...

Not to be contentious, but if the glue mixed up well, looked good , smelled good, and made a strong joint I would use it. Age wouldn't bother me per se, but if it didn't have the qualities I required I wouldn't use it. Not all hide glue is created equal.

No age limit on Hide glue, providing it has been kept dry. 30 year old stuff is but a youngster.

Understand all that, but a 55gallon drum opened time and time again over 30 years...good luck.

If you have unidentified glue and misgivings about its suitability for your instrument work, well, DON'T USE IT.

Don't throw it away, either. If it's not useful for gluing bridges, it IS useful for many other jobs around the shop. In fact, there's nothing as good as hot hide glue for pasting cardboard boxes together. I have about five pounds of mystery hide glue I'm slowly using up for "utility" jobs. Free glue is free glue!

Get yourself a can of the good stuff, and use it for the good jobs.

OR, if you're plain crazy like me, get ahold of Milligan and Higgins and buy a 50 lb. sack if high clarity 192 gram glue for cheap. . .

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Cheers,

Frank Ford

FRETS.COM
HomeShopTech
FRETS.NET

The most hide glue I've ever used was almost forty years ago when I was doing taxidermy at the museum where I worked.
The full sized models for the animal manikins (forms which would receive the tanned skins) were sculpted in clay over the animal's skeleton (set up in the position wanted) then a plaster mold was made and removed.
Once dry, hot hide glue was brushed into the mold and a layer of burlap was tamped in making sure it conformed perfectly (this is where the sticky glue came in) to the contours.
The burlap was then backed up with several more layers of burlap soaked in plaster, and the separate mold pieces trimmed and joined back together with more burlap and plaster.
Now the properties of the hide glue came into play once again as the entire affair was immersed in water, the dry plaster mold soaked in the water again dissolving the hide glue and releasing the thin plaster and burlap shell from the mold.

Lots of different uses for hide glue.........

Thanks everyone - fun conversation here.

Someone on another forum said this:

"You DO realize that 881 is 188 upside down, don't you?"

I'll have to get around to doing some tests.

Ed Minch

David Collins - you said:

"Actually I do have a gauge and setup to measure the bloom. Couldn't give you an exact measurement, but can get a pretty good ballpark rating +/- 15g."

I can get more - how about I send you this bag and you let me know what the strength is when you can get around to it. Actually, I may be able to get a reasonable supply to distribute.

Send me an address

Ed Minch

Will do. Actually, I'm working in a mentorship program with a physics student at a local school, and was just going through some of my old textbooks for project ideas. I can think of a few properties this test could fit in with to hand over as a student project (don't worry, I'll check their work).

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I’d have to use Occam's razor here-the simplest solution is the best. Dump the free stuff, spend approx $10 on a pound on known stuff, and don’t look back. Saves time, energy, and heartache. Thx, Tony

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Tony Flippo

What fun is that?

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Oh brother...

Oh Haans,

I have enough good hide glue of various strengths to last years. I've also spent a lot of time testing, experimenting, and developing modified adhesives, so I happen to have some equipment which allows me to appraise the mystery glue in question. I wouldn't hold my breath that it will be the right strength (or clarity or smell) to my liking, and probably never get used on instruments, but who knows.

I spend far too much time doing important stuff based on sensible business priorities. If you're looking for a logical reason here, there isn't one. This is not about saving a few bucks on glue - it's a leisure activity for one who loves to play with adhesives, and suffers the occasional affliction of child-like curiosity.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

It's probably strong enough for instrument making purposes. At one time I was using Bone glue, with a gram strength of around 150. Gluing bridges with finger pressure/no clamps. No failures (that I know of).

Guess I'd rather build instruments. I should send you all the glue I throw out because I think it's too old. Six months is my limit in the fridge...
Not criticizing your motives, I just thought this was a guitar building forum, not a glue forum. Sometimes folks get all caught up in peripherals...
Most builders have enough to worry about besides stale glue and exploding glue joints. Why toss that into the mix? It's so cheap.

As much as we discuss the virtues and failings of various glues this may well be, in part, a glue forum.What better way to find out if 30 year old hide glue granules found in an open bin is worth using than to test it. As an amateur instrument maker I will admit to a high degree of curiosity when it comes to such things. Discussions of tools and resawing techniques are about as far afield as glue threads and can be as great a distraction from building, but are also part of the discourse here.
You are right Haans, if a person is not careful they may stumble into a morass of testing and experimentation and never accomplish any great body of work. Such is the fate of the curious amateur.

If I am going to spend 100 hrs building a guitar I think that I would use fresh glue. It isn't that expensive. I use 192 and 251 gram strength HHG when I use HHG

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it