glues lets have a chat

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tippie53
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glues lets have a chat

Post by tippie53 »

Martin , when the moved away from Hot Hide glue , had access to an independent glue study , and according to Dick Boak they chose to use a PVA glue at this time.
Tite bond was not available and I can't be 100% sure but I think it was a commercial product that they found locally. HHG was still used into the 70's.
please post your experience with different glues

Please don't post about what someone else said post from your experience but also ask questions of concerns you have,

Now to get to the real reason , we all have our glues of choice. I will state mine and the pros and cons of my reasoning.

Fish Glue
PRO
good working time
Easy clean up
grabs fast dries hard

CON
12 hr dry time
Can be tricky to separate
May stain end grain of some wood

HHG
PRO

Good all around glue
Easy clean up
easy to separate
Dries hard
Doesn't slip
CON
short open time
Short shelf live

PVA
PRO
easy to work with
Fairly easy clean up
reasonable open time
CON
Dries gummy
Cold creep can be an issue

Cold Hide Glue
PRO
same as HHG
CON
Short shelf live
Personally rate this about the same as Fish glue

CA
Super glue
PRO
fast set time
CON
Can stain woods
can be a bear to clean up
Will glue to fast to the world

the more I do this the less I use it.
Glue Boost is becoming the CA of choice for me

EPOXY
no use for this in guitar building.

the only brand I will use is HEXTAL
it is a museum grade and is used in rare occasions for restoration of cross grain breaks Frank Ford turned me on to this.
It will take weeks to cure and it is designed for penetration of the material.
John Hall
Blues Creek Guitars Inc
Authorized CF Martin Repair Center
president of Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans
http://www.bluescreekguitars.com
Bob Gleason
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Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by Bob Gleason »

I have about the same take on glues as John, except that when I used fish glue in a class in Europe it seemed to have a fairly fast set time. I use HHG for top and back seams and bracing, and cold HG for everything else. The cold HG has a longer open time, which makes it easier for me to glue more complicated joinery like neck joints. I don't use much CA anymore because of staining and the fact that it sets my mistakes in stone too fast. I do use it a little for inlay and gluing fret ends. I like Starboard and use medium thin about as much as thin. One of the uses for epoxy that I have , I use West System, is broken headstock repair. Don't do much repair anymore, but that epoxy is excellent for a messy break. I also use it for gluing in carbon fiber truss rods when needed.
MaineGeezer
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:14 pm

Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by MaineGeezer »

I use

Titebond
Convenient, somewhat forgiving, seems to be adequate for most things. Allegedly will creep under load.

Hot Hide Glue
Reversible, doesn't creep, lasts "forever" (they've found things in the pyramids glued with HHG that are still sucure.)
Short working time. I use this for attaching the neck to the body and the bridge to the top. Lately I've started to use
it for attaching braces.

CA glue
I use the super-thin sometimes to repair cracks and such. It's somewhat of a nuisance to use. One has to be careful
not to glue oneself to the guitar, and I haven't figured out a way to keep the bottle from clogging up.

Duco cement
I've used this for bindings and inlays. It dries relatively quickly, but doens't hold all that well on porous surfaces.
Don't believe everything you know.
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.
When things are bad, try not to make them any worse, because it is quite likely they are bad enough already. - French Foreign Legion
ruby@magpage.com
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Joined: Thu May 24, 2012 8:03 am
Location: Chestertown Maryland

Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by ruby@magpage.com »

Bob Gleason

I'm very interested in the cold HG. I have used it a couple of time in non-loadbearing places and like to work with it. A couple of questions please:

How do you store it between uses?
Do you use it all the way up to the expiration date on the bottle?
How long in the clamps?

Thanks

Ed
Ed M
Kevin Sjostrand
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Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by Kevin Sjostrand »

How would the cold HG be used on wood bindings/purflings? Does it have color?
I like the idea of longer open times.
glasalle1
Posts: 190
Joined: Sun Aug 22, 2010 5:02 pm

Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by glasalle1 »

I have been using fish as my primary for my last 4 guitars. I like the open time, especially for the binding process. I used duco for first time on last 2 used plastic bindings" i found that to work just fine. I use titebond occasionally for certain functions, but not a fan of how much it "swims" after applying. I really like the high tack on Fish - titebond moves around alot.

I have used the cold hide glue on parts of my current builds in process. Seems to work pretty well so far. I only use CA to fix things if I screw up :-). Although, I do use it for inlay work.

I have never had an issue of fish staining anything... until a top I just joined. For some reason - and this never happened on any other top - it left a yellow stain around the joint. Also first time I used German Spruce, so not sure if that had any impact.

Glenn
Bob Gleason
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Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by Bob Gleason »

I've not really taken any special precautions on keeping CHG. The only way I've found to buy it is in the small bottles from Franklin and they get used up in what seems like a reasonable amount of time to me. As far as clamping time, I don't treat it any differently than Titebond. The way building goes, you are never really stressing any joinery during the building process, so I feel O.K. with unclamping after an hour at most. Although I do the top and back clamping with CHG, binding is one of the few places that I still am using Titebond with light colored woods like spruce. For dark woods, like koa, the CHG works for binding. It does show a darker line than Titebond if everything is not tight.
tippie53
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Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by tippie53 »

On the CHG and Fish I like to let clamped overnight. I look at the drying glues different than the curing but I agree I am going to err on the side of safety .
As for the CHG today the date code is easy to read . My rule of thumb is once open it is tossed in 6 weeks. I look at a $4 bottle of glue is not worth risking a joint. When in doubt make a test joint. I use 2 pc of spruce a drop of glue and hand squeeze for a few sec to when it grabs then let set about an hour , if it peels of and the glue is not drying I will hold it together one more time. Usually it pulls wood fibers up and if it does that, you know it is a lot stronger when it has proper dry time.
On fish I do find getting the joints apart is a little tougher than CHG or HHG but like the harness. I still use Duco for all rosettes and binding unless I am doing wood then I use tite bond or fish or chg whatever is closer to my hand.

I will also say the torrified tops should be clamped overnight as the process does change the way the wood cells handle water.
John Hall
Blues Creek Guitars Inc
Authorized CF Martin Repair Center
president of Association of Stringed Instrument Artisans
http://www.bluescreekguitars.com
Super72bb
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Joined: Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:30 pm

Re: glues lets have a chat

Post by Super72bb »

Great post, great discussion. I have limited building experience so it is fantastic to get an inside look at glues and experiences of you all who have tried a variety of them. I can see pros and cons with all the glues I used with my build. Fish, Titebond and CA. One thing I can contribute... I did a test of strength between Fish Glue and Titebond. I found after the same clamping time that Titebond seemed to be much stronger when I broke the test pieces apart. Fish glue seems to dry super hard which makes me think that it would be great as a filler in areas where the it may be needed. For example if you end up taking a little too much material out of the kerf lining to slot for the braces.

Thanks again for this post, most valuable.
MaineGeezer
Posts: 1711
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2014 12:14 pm

Dealing with CA glue....

Post by MaineGeezer »

Has anybody figured out how to keep CA glue from gluing its own bottle shut?
Don't believe everything you know.
Anything is possible if you don't know what you are talking about.
When things are bad, try not to make them any worse, because it is quite likely they are bad enough already. - French Foreign Legion
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