Thread: Hide Glue Steamer - Aldi *on special now*!

Sometimes I like to do the recoverable or reversable things, that won't work, simply to find ways that make them "will work".

So I had a joint for my bead head, that's a lenght of almost 4 meters by 20mm in width, and I decided to glue it up, with hot hid glue, on not very warm timber, on a not very warm morning - with no jigs and no hope of getting it all clamped up before the glue cooled.....

That resulted in lots of glue getting laid down until it became a gummy mess, along the joint faces.

Building a "steamy" wood heater was out of the question for the almost 2 meter lengths of timber, so a proper steamer was the go.

I could build one, but that is a lot of "rooting around", and the Aldi one was $30.

So I got one (would have preferred to get 2 of them) and then set up a bunch of jigs and clamps and set the joint gaps up ready for quick assembly and then commenced to steam the glue coated joint faces - using the multi jet nozzle on the steamer.

My estimation of being able to steam a joint of around 4 meters in length at 20mm wide (at around 20*C) was pretty much on the mark. I could have probably squeezed in for 5 or even 5.5 meters...

But it all comes back to the ratio of heat input vs. heat loss, through convection, evaporation and radiation...

And the idea of getting the heat to soak into the timber surface and the glue, that process begins to diminish as the bigger the joint gets, the more heat it loses between passes... and there comes a point where the heat loss equals the heat input and so the timber just doesn't get or stay hot enough to melt the glue into the joint and timber surface.

I guess it's not much different to using a soldering iron on a big piece of sheet metal.

Still - 4 meters of 20 mm wide joint face, is not bad going.

But in the hot tropics at 45*C with 90% humidity and no wind, you could probably do 7 or even 8 meters of this sized joint, with this sized steamer.

So I remelted all the glue on the joint faces, I steamed the timber in the joints up to and beyond the melting point of the hide glue and that both wicked into the timber and sort of ran out; so when the whole joint was at the right temperature, all jigged and in position and ready to clamp, I gave it all a quick brushed on application with fresh hot hide glue and clamped it all up.

And it all worked.

So the verdict.

Using a steamer like the Aldi one, turns using hide glue from that of a slap it on with a brush, into an event more like silver soldering with an oxy torch.

The timber surface is preheated and premoistened, the hide glue flow like silver alloy across the surfaces and into and through joints - and the steam jet can be used to preheat the insides of the joint and it can also be used to force feed the glue way in deep and all through the joint.

Using a steamer makes for a MUCH BETTER joint than merely brushing the glue on.

Although a bedhead is not a "musical instrument" the principles of using hide glue and steaming joints is; and a 4 meter by 20mm wide joint face is a remarkable hide glue joint to do properly in ONE go, for a single user.

So I imagine that with 2 people using 2 of these steamers, that they could pop the top or back on a Chellow (proper spelling) in minutes.

I also imagine that one could assemble a solid body guitar from timber pieces in very short period of time as well.


Using a steamer like a oxy-acetelyene torch really improves the quality of joint.

It turns the process from a slap and dash with the brush to a "properly welded" timber joint.


Here is some pictures on it.

Great idea HH, not using hide glue at this stage, but might put one in the shed just in case.

Thanks for sharing, greenie sent.

Thanks for the info on the Aldi steamer Hamma. A couple of comments/thoughts from one who uses hide glue on some of his acoustics:

Might be ok for undoing joints but I wouldnt be getting too much moisture onto a spruce top while gluing in braces....youre going to have some serious deformation of the top going on. I give parts a quick blast with a heat gun set on low and I make sure room temp is up when working with hide glue on my acoustics.

For electrics I think you're better off using Titebond or other modern glues. Tha main advantage of hide glue on an acoustic is the reversibilty of the glue joint. On a solid body electric theres not much need for reversing a glue joint.

This machine would probably be excellent for undoing hide glued dovetail neck joints. Id look at fitting a football inflation needle to the hose. Poked through a hole drilled through the 12th fret and down into the neck joint would be a great way to get the joint freed up.

Cheers Martin

i bought one.

I picked one up tonight. There's probably other uses for it too

I am pleased that you all have decided to have a go of the steamer....

The steamer is HUGE treat, plus if you get really excited by the steam you can get the extension cord out and run around pulling the handle and going "Wooooooo, Woooooooo - chuff, chuff, chuff, chuff, chuff," and play Thomas the Tank Engine.....

The specs... the steamer has a max pressure of 3 bar or 3 x atmospheric (gauge) pressure, based upon the internal temperature as set by the thermostat... that is about 45 PSI for those who love a good 6".

OK some trick physics - from someone who's vaguness and age and not being willing to look up all the steam empalthy tables of pressure and temperature and specific heat etc., could probably be stood to some correction.....

STEAM is not water, it's a HOT GAS.

Now the following is a FIXED "snapshot" and not the description of a dynamic...

Think hot humid day, and wading across a shallow stream in long pants, around knee deep.

OK the wet part of the pants are wet - no doubt about that, and the dry part of the pants are dry - except for the very high humidity of the fabric.

So I guess this is a bit of a mental "hurts my brane" issues, much like stating a specific point is applicable to the whole issue, in a changing dynamic - across a large range of variation.

Kind of like arguing the toss about whether a glass of fresh water is actually salt water, when the teaspoon of salt is poured into the glass, or as it sinks to the bottom - part dissolving as it goes or when the salt is fully stirred and dissolved into solution throughout the entire volume of water.

The best bit of using this steamer with hide glue is that once the surface of the timber has been heated up, the upper pores in the wood have a HIGH humidity, but they are not wet....... OK..

Deeper into the wood at a very small molecular level - there will be some "wetness" or a microfilm or layer of water - this being balanced by the temperature gradient of the wood and the length of exposure to the steamer.

Remember that STEAM is a HOT gas.... not a liquid - steam is not water; and there is an issue of relative humidity that a film of water will rapidly evaporate from a substance, the hotter the substance gets....

So the more the timber is steamed - being the depth of penetration of the heat, the although "saturated" with humidity - the dryer it gets....

AND there is a ratio in free and open space that the higher the temperature of a specific zone, the lower the relative water content of that zone within that space.

OK the trick bit.....

The reason why using steam in the preparation of the surface to be glued - by heating the joint with the steamer and then applying the hide glue, is because the steam with it's HIGH humidity and warmth of the joint faces, it acts as a flux for the hide glue...

So the glue penetrates INTO the wood pores - as the heat and the humidity act as a surface treatment or "true flux" and indeed the steamed faces draw the glue into them by vacuum as the hot water vapor condenses back into water...

Now remember that the hotter the volume of space gets the wider the water molecules disperse, it would seem to me that using steam as a surface treatment would leave the joint at a lower relative moisture level.

So while the surface of the joint is being fluxed and the hide glue is being fed into the joint - in exactly the same way as one silver solders, the steam would be drying the timber joint faces and it would be drying the glue as well.

I have noticed that the glue sets and dries significantly faster in the joint using the steamer, and the joint lines can be set to be perfectly flat and square....

I think using the steamer in exactly the same way as a soft bushy flame while silver soldering - makes the hide glue flow exactly like silver solder over a properly prepared joint in copper pipe.

I also think that it makes for a MUCH stronger joint, as compared to a joint that merely has the hot hide glue brushed onto it - because of the surface penetration.

I am also seeing the wisdom in the shared experiences of many people who do use hide glue, of creating tightly fitting, accurate and flat joints (with prior sanding - that is just me), but using the steamer changes the entire dynamic of creating the joint.

It changes from being a "glued" joint, into being a "welded" joint.

Using a steamer to preheat and humidify the joint faces also makes for a much longer "open time" before the glue begins to jell or is that gell....

So having said all that, remember the bed head that had almost 4 meters by 20mm of joint faces to bond in the ONE moment, using nothing but hide glue and the steamer - here is a photo of the more or less finished bed head insitu...

It's end profile is much like this - being a T bone in section.

||
||
||
====
||
||
||