Thread: How long would you give frozern hide glue ?

I like the idea. Maybe you could just stick it in Ice cube trays instead of worrying about catching it at "jelly" stage. Have no idea about life though. (Or glue. )

I use this system too. I make the cubes in an ice cube tray (cleary labelled horse sauce - do not eat - I remember what happened to watson) and keep the try in the freezer.

So far the longest I have kept a cube is 3 months and it was still fine.

BTW I use one of these little beauties - excellent for small quantities (I can get glue ready in 40 minutes using it). The only issue is making sure SWMBO doesn't use it for heating sugar or wax!

thanks. 3 months sounds plenty.

thought it was worth a check. ta.

Jake - the reason glue goes off is because of the bacteria & fungi which inevitably contaminate it. These critters don't have a mouth, so they secrete enzymes into the brew that chops up the collagen fibres into little bits they can absorb through their 'skin'. The bits left behind don't polymerize any more, so no more glue. They can only do this when there is enough water, (which is why it's fine when dry) and the temperature is high enough to allow molecules to move freely, but not too high (generally less than 40 deg C.

As long as you prepare it & freeze it straight away, the shelf life of frozen glue should be indefinite, or at least as long as you are likely to be allowed to clutter up part of the freezer...... Also, take care to minimise microbial contamination by keeping grotty fingers out of the brew & maybe cover it as it cools. The bugs won't do much while frozen, of course, and most will be killed off when reheated above 50 deg, but if you leave contaminated brew to thaw for a long time before re-heating, any bugs in it get going. There will always be some, unless you go to ridiculous lengths to keep the mix sterile - the idea is to keep the numbers low, & reheat promptly.

There - Bacteriology 101 & more info than you ever needed!

Avagooday,

Cheers,

gotcha. thanks Ian.

say if I overestermate how much I need for a session one day, and I don't want to throw the left overs, cause I'm a tight ####. How do I know for certain its ok ?

Read somewhere It can be reheated a couple of times before it goes bad.......but feel I need some more definete test that its ok to be used again. How do you tell ? Smell partularily worse than usual ? different colour ? or just no real check...or just chuck it.

probably won't bother anyway keeping cause it gets over me, and I smell like I haven't showered in months. uno. shed smells like old bum

Jake - my day job is in (veterinary) pathology, so I have a finely-honed nose & I think the smell of fresh glue is just fine.
Well, not exactly, but there is a difference between the pungent smell of fresh glue & the putrid smell of "off" glue. If you leave a pot cooled & uncovered for 3 or 4 days, you'll soon see & smell a really cool & often colourful culture of microbes (& I'd be surprised if it hasn't happened to you more than once already, so you'll know exactly what I mean!). That's obviously over the hill, but the glue has lost significant strength before it gets to that stage, I'm told. Another afficionado of hide glue (Woodwould) advises chucking it when it goes too dark, but that's a bit of a hard call if you use the old iron glue pots, 'cos I find it goes dark in them almost straight away from the iron salts. The wax heater I use now is beaut - it has an aluminium container which doesn't impart any colour to the glue, so I can see easily if it's starting to change colour.

All that being said, usually, you can safely keep fresh glue for a day or three if you keep it covered when cool - bacteria & fungal spores are floating around just looking for their next meal. My wax-pot has a nice tight lid, so if I put the lid on when hot, & switch off, there is no contamination. I have used glue from it that was 5 days old, but looked & smelt normal, just to see. It went on ok & seemed to dry to full strength. However, I would not use such stuff on anything that really mattered, just in case, so I try to mix only enough for a day or two at most - the beauty of my wax-pot is that it's quick & easy to mix a small amount in - a couple of teaspoons worth of pellets, no problem. So I'm finding I have much less waste than when I used the old double-boiler gluepot. Betcha I'm as tight as you when it comes to workshop 'consumables', & I reckon the wax-pot has earned its keep after just a couple of years in saved glue!

My other thought is that I think we may be fussing too much about it. Hide glue has enormous strength, & even when done half-properly it forms a really good bond. When I was a kid it was still the most popular w'working glue & most people were not too careful with it, yet it still seemed to do the job. I have had fewer failures with hide glue than the synthetics, and the few I have had were way easier to fix.

Cheers,

Thanks Ian. Find that very helpful.

I'm liking the stuff too. Only thing thats bothering me is the short working time. Plays havoc with all the little joints I've got. Quite like taking my time at glue up.. instead of anal organisation prior, and trying to control enough of that mad rush at glueup that I don't stuff up....so tempted to stick just with the liquid stuff.... but then there's the short shelf life. The last batch of liquid hide glue I got was actually bad before the expirey date. Maybe I was just unlucky though. I don't know. oh it was over summer...maybe thats something to do with it.

Jake - two things:

I also hate the panic with any complicated glue-ups (even simple ones if you've got large glue areas to cover), and sometimes I just have to accept that I do them in stages. PITA . I also cheat, sometimes, and make the glue as watery as I dare, which helps a lot. It seems to be pretty tolerant stuff, & diluting it beyond the 'runny honey' stage a bit hasn't noticably weakened any of my joints so far.

WRT the premixed stuff: I don't know, cos I've never tried to use it, but I assume they put something in it to slow down microbial growth. It would be too easy to contaminate it, & your average w'worker is hardly going to work like a bacteriologist every day. However, you probably got some bug in yours (or it came with it!) that was able to get going despite any antimicrobial additives. One thing you could try is to pour out a small amount from the bottle the first time you open it, into a smaller one for working with, being careful not to get any dust or dirt in the original bottle, or touch the top with your fingers (your pinkies may not support quite as much wildlife as mine, but they'll still have plenty of bugs on them!). Then keep the rest in the original bottle in the fridge (fridge should do rather than freezer...). I have not tried this myself, so I don't know how much that would prolong (or maintain) shelf life, but from first principles, I reckon it would have to help....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

Jake - two things:

I also hate the panic with any complicated glue-ups (even simple ones if you've got large glue areas to cover), and sometimes I just have to accept that I do them in stages. PITA . I also cheat, sometimes, and make the glue as watery as I dare, which helps a lot. It seems to be pretty tolerant stuff, & diluting it beyond the 'runny honey' stage a bit hasn't noticably weakened any of my joints so far.

ta. I'll give teh water ago. ...what I have been doing is getting the heat gun out and heating up the joints in advance, and on one joint that locked up on me before I could twist the spindle into alignment (been trying to be different by having curved spindles), I heat gunned to twist the spindle,,,, had no choice....didn't seemed to do anything , but I don't like it, cause I fear burning the timber etc.

WRT the premixed stuff: I don't know, cos I've never tried to use it, but I assume they put something in it to slow down microbial growth. It would be too easy to contaminate it, & your average w'worker is hardly going to work like a bacteriologist every day. However, you probably got some bug in yours (or it came with it!) that was able to get going despite any antimicrobial additives. One thing you could try is to pour out a small amount from the bottle the first time you open it, into a smaller one for working with, being careful not to get any dust or dirt in the original bottle, or touch the top with your fingers (your pinkies may not support quite as much wildlife as mine, but they'll still have plenty of bugs on them!). Then keep the rest in the original bottle in the fridge (fridge should do rather than freezer...). I have not tried this myself, so I don't know how much that would prolong (or maintain) shelf life, but from first principles, I reckon it would have to help....

Cheers,

So I assume when regular hide glue goes off it fails to set as well like the liquid stuff ?

I like your idea of transfering some of it to the freezer.

I'll look into it more. Ask the manufactorers if I can freeze it to make sure. Not that I don't trust you, just uno. .....Its just that its so much easier with the liquid stuff as long as I can be sure I don't use it when its expired.....Stuffs up the whole chair.

Its got this little nozzle tip as well that just squeezes out just the right amount into a mortise or onto a tenon.....and can take my time....make sure everythings just right.

But will still use the regular hide glue I think for simplier glueups.

Thanks again for sharing your thoughts Ian. Have a good weekend.

ISTR that you can extend the open time of hot hide glue by adding either potassium chloride or potash. I haven't tried it and I don't know how much you need to add. Let us know if you conduct an experiment!

Originally Posted by jmk89

ISTR that you can extend the open time of hot hide glue by adding either potassium chloride or potash. I haven't tried it and I don't know how much you need to add. Let us know if you conduct an experiment!

Haven't heard of using KCl, jeremy - urea is what is usually recommended. However, perhaps any highly soluble salt will do the job. I s'pose you get marched off by some big ugly man in a blue suit & accused of plotting terrorism, if you go asking for urea, these days...

Cheers,

Originally Posted by IanW

I s'pose you get marched off by some big ugly man in a blue suit & accused of plotting terrorism, if you go asking for urea, these days...

Cheers,

I bought some in the garden section at Bunny's... or was it M10?