Thread: Hide/scotch glue

Congratulations Ian!

I've only ever used animal glue; or horse sauce as I like to call it. I ritually switched the glue on each morning at 6:30 and fine tuned the mix with either more water or another handful of glue granules. I washed the entire pot out about once a fortnight.

If you don't use it daily, I would recommend emptying the pot and, if the glue is freshly made, freezing the remainder for another day. I wouldn't advise re-freezing stuff that's already been frozen.

It seems to be a common practice to heat the glue to a steady 80° nowadays. I don't know if there has been some relatively recent modifications to the manufacturing process, but I, and many others, used only to heat the glue to 65° or possibly 70°. I bought some of U-Beaut's glue recently and Neil's recommendation is to heat it to 80°, so that's what I will do when I get around to using it.

The glue soon smells and turns a darker shade if it's overheated or has been sitting around too long. If you treat horse sauce as you would a pot of stew; keep it hot and it's fine, but if you left the stew sitting around the kitchen for a few days unheated, it would soon spoil and begin smelling.

When cleaning up, I wait until the glue has at least gelled and then I tackle any surplus with a blunt knife and follow that with a toothbrush, a cloth and extremely hot water.

Two tit-bits:
1/ There was a race horse not that long ago (it may still be alive and well) called Glue.
2/ A family I worked for in Ireland had a pot of stew that was, by all accounts, well over two hundred years old. It was never taken off the fire and more meat and vegetables etc. were added daily. Each newly married daughter took a small pot of the same stew with her to the matrimonial home and began a new generation of the same stew. It's what Ireland's famous for – Irish Stew.

There's a real darkside method for using the glue, where you apply the glue to both bits and gently rub them together. Suddenly, they stick.....and don't come apart. Must have been worked out before clamps (IMHO).
Works a treat.

Yes rubbed glue joints are a wonderful thing. Many clock cases and chests etc. owe their existence to the glue block.

Rubbing the edges of two boards works extremely well too. I know most books on cabinetmaking advise using loose tongues when joining boards edge-to-edge, but it's long been a practice to hold one board in the vice and rub a second board backwards and forwards a couple of times with some glue. You can then pick the two boards up by the top one and lean them against a stick propped against a wall to dry. Many a table top is prepared this way. The timber will split before that glue joint comes apart (unless the joint gets wet).

When I was at high school in the 1950s, woodwork was a compulsory subject for us boys. We used hide glue because no one then had heard of Aquadhere. Someone gave me recently a very old glue pot in a water jacket.
Question: where in Perth, Western Australia can you buy glue pearls?

See the ubeaut link below....or Carbatec in Perth will sell you the same.

Thanks Noel - Kevin

If you can't find hide glue buy a few packets of gelatine at the supermarket.
I read somewhere that hide glue ranks next to epoxy for holding power and is stronger than the PVA range of glues.

I have an old sunbeam coffee maker. The pot long gone but the base has a heating element that kept the coffee warm. I use to keep the double boiler on this and it worked fine. Great joy was, if I forgot to but water in the bottom of the boiler it did not stink the workshop out.bill

I made a solar wax melter for cleaning up surplus wax from my hives. It seems to me it may work with the hide glue.

The down side is it will only work on sunny days. I'll give it a go today I have a project that needs gluing.

Ross

When I was an apprentice in the early 50's we used the glue on the window sashes that we were making and i used to chew it tasted good to me
les

Originally Posted by les88

When I was an apprentice in the early 50's we used the glue on the window sashes that we were making and i used to chew it tasted good to me
les

When I glued up sets of chairs, I would set each freshly glued chair on the floor and my dog would make an excellent job of removing the surplus glue which shortened the time it took me to give the joints a final clean with hot water.

As an occasional special treat, he also used to get the surplus glue tipped into his bowl at the end of the day.

Thanks all, I'm a convert , though I must admit that as a painter I've been using hide glue gesso for the last 15 years or so, but the process is a little different.
Chairs seem to be holding up, so practice follows theory.
How do you judge the temperature, thermometer?
Oh by the way I got my glue from the Art shop 'St Lukes' in Smith St Collingwood as its closer to where I live but the Ubeaut stuff that Neil sells would be on par as all of his products I've tried are excellent.

Originally Posted by Ian Wells

Thanks all, I'm a convert , though I must admit that as a painter I've been using hide glue gesso for the last 15 years or so, but the process is a little different.
Chairs seem to be holding up, so practice follows theory.
How do you judge the temperature, thermometer?
Oh by the way I got my glue from the Art shop 'St Lukes' in Smith St Collingwood as its closer to where I live but the Ubeaut stuff that Neil sells would be on par as all of his products I've tried are excellent.

I recently bought a wax pot to serve as a glue pot and I used a culinary thermometer to benchmark the rheostat markings around the temperature knob.

Thanks Woodwould, I think I'll hunt out a wax pot and culinary thermometer as the glue is great to use.
I've generally used a bucket and fry pan full of water for the gesso as temperature is a rule of thumb thing based on ambient temperature, the application method, what I've had for breakfast and the trousers I'm wearing
I can make it in my sleep, but can't explain how to get it just so
I've just been scanning your prior posts and looking at your work ....stunning , great to have you on board.

ian