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Hi all!

I´ve glued my first back today (EIRW) and it got me thinking about using some kind of solvent to remove part of the oils and facilitate glueing. using the search function here seemed to provide opinions both pro and against it. i was wondering if somebody wanted to elaborate on this or share his / hers opinion.

thanks in advance,
Miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

With most oily woods, EIR included, it's best to glue immediately after freshening the surfaces to be joined. Normally that will alleviate most gluing problems. Even Cocobolo seems to respond well to that process.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

thanks for the reply!

yes, that´s what i did for this EIRW set. shooting board, some cleaning and then straight to the HHG. it seemed to work OK. was just wondering if the use of some kind of solvent would be beneficial or negligible (or prejudicial) for the gluing process with more "difficult" woods. *

cheers,
Miguel.

EDIT: * - if there are more "difficult" woods. all this is rather new to me.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

OK, gotcha.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Just posed a similar question to the folks at Franklin's tech dept with regards to gluing Gabon Ebony with Titebond, here is the reply.

"Dear Brian,
Surface preparation with acetone is sufficient and at least as effective as machining the bonding surface prior to gluing. Keep in mind that exceptionally dark oily species such as ebony tend to require more time under clamp pressure.

Please feel free to contact us at 1-800-347-4583 if we can be of any further assistance.

Hugh D. Evans
Technical Specialist"

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Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

again, thanks for the replies guys! this does seem to be an unconsensual question...

Todd, if i get what you are saying, there are two main problems:

- oxidation of the oils (or resins?), which is the main factor in weakening glue joints;

- capillarity, which will lead into the leakage of new oils as soon as the dissolved ones are removed by the solvent from the surface of the wood to be jointed.

the rationale being that if the main factor in weakening a joint is oxidation of the resins / oils, the use of solvent should be redundant. if capillarity is low (or the wood is not that oily), OTOH, a solvent could be of some use, as it would partially decrease the amount of boundary oils. did i get this right?

interesting questions, nevertheless. i might dwell deeper into this in the future.

thanks,
Miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes