Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everybody I'm building some new clamps and whatnot and am wondering: what's the best glue to use for gluing leather to wood? Preferably something I can find at Lowe's too please.

Ian

Ditto on the contact cement. I would not be sure about the water based contact cement (haven't tried it), but the flammable toxic stuff works really well. I also have used original Titebond for years and it works fine, and for me it is more convenient. Coat both surfaces, rub the leather pad back and forth to get a good connection, then let the glue set.

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Tim Allen
"Never hurry, never rest."

Contact Cement is always going to be succesfull when glueing two dissimilar materials together. It will give a permanant and very strong bond while allowing each to move independently of each other without stressing the glue joint.

my wife used to work with leather back in the hippy daze, and they used barge cement.
i think it's similar to contact cement,
if not the same thing.

I tried Shoe Goo but it didn't work well with leather and metal.
I put leather on the clamps for a binding machine and found that titebond worked well but I used carpet tacks as well.

Bob

Gotta be hide glue....

Yup, not surprisingly, hide glue (and fish glue) will glue will glue leather quite well to wood.

Anecdote: Hide glue is what most traditional bow makers recommend for gluing rawhide reinforcement to the backs of bows. It bond it very well to the wood, and as an added benefit, the shrinking of the glue will help pre-stress the bow, which helps it performance.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I used to work with silversmiths who glued leather onto the bottom of silver chalices, goblets, boxes, etc. They used ordinary flour and water or heavy duty wallpaper paste.

The bellows of concertinas like this one used to be made from cardboard, cotton tape and leather stuck togather with flour and water paste. They'd last about 100 years before wearing out.

You guys can figure out more ways to argue about glue.

The 'truth' is cork is much better than leather.

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