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Alright, I am thinking about switching some of my operations to hide glue. Up to this point, I have been a 100% titebond user. Still love the stuff for certain applications. Here is what I am thinking:

Titebond for:
Headstock overlays
Blocks
Kerfed Liners
Side Struts
Soundport veneers
Top/Back joining
Fingerboard
Rosette
End wedge
Heel cap
Back seam reinforcement

Hide Glue for:
Plates to sides
All braces/brace plates to top/back
Binding, purfling
Armrest veneers (?)
Bridge

Any suggestions?

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
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Chris,

You probably don't want to use hide glue for anything that takes any amount of time to clamp, if you're just starting out with hide glue. Maybe start out with braces and bridge, rehearsing dry first. And maybe think about what the advantages would be for switching to hide glue for each area.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I'd highly recommend you consider fish glue as well. I use fish and hide for about 95% of the gluing operations on all my builds. I still use Titebond for headplates, heal cap and maybe 1 or 2 other areas that I don't believe have much of a contribution to tone. I don't see the advantage for things like binding and other areas where the short open time may be an issue. I've tried it for things like liners and found I really prefer working with fish glue. Fish glue works great for the areas where you still want the benefits of hide glue, with a longer open time.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
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I use HHG for:

All braces and bridgeplate
Bridge
side reinforcements
top and back jointing

I use titebond for (mostly because I work too slowly to use HHG [someday I intend to get some fish glue for these):
Laminating my linings
gluing tops and backs on
heel and tail blocks

I use CA for bindings, purflings and rossettes, but would probably use fish if I had it.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I know nothing about fish glue. Is it a powder, mixed with water and heated like hide? How long of an open time? How long of a cure time? Why would I want to use fish glue over titebond for things like binding?

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
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On fish glue, does it reactivate like HHG or must old glue be cleaned away first?

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

It reactivates when dampened.
One other consideration is FG's high heat tolerance (up to 500f). When used to assemble bindings/purfling it holds them together while heat bending.

Here is a tech sheet for Norland high tack fish glue: http://www.norlandprod.com/fishgel/hightack.html

So to use fish for binding/purfling it would all for a better open time than hide and a better re-workability than TB? I read somewhere that fish has a 12 hour cure time. Is that right?

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
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http://ensorguitars.com

Yep, leave it clamped up overnight.

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Always have plenty of sandpaper; it's rough out there!

Anyone out there using fish glue for side bending of laminates??? Currently I am using a brown urea based 2 part adhesive open time 1/2 hr that dries vy hard for a 3 part laminate of 1piece walnut abt .080and 2 other .022 walnut veneers. thanks.

What I like about HHG is that it cleans up so easily. For me it's a pretty good exercise to use it for almost everything. Because you do have to work quickly, it forces you to have everything lined up and ready to go, and think about what you do before you do it.

If you want to use hide glue, but haven't worked with it yet, I'd use it for all of those steps that aren't so tricky to get right in a limited period of time. For me, the trickiest is closing the box. That can be a bit nerve wracking with hide glue. Pretty important to start with the components warmed, so the glue doesn't gel quickly.

Have fun with it!!

RE closing the box with HHG - another way to do this is with an iron. I did this most recently with a big zither thing, which was about twice as big as a guitar.

Basic procedure is: Put on the back normally. Wait a few minutes for the glue to grab and gel, and then go around it with an iron. It's important that you don't wait too long, as the glue needs to have some moisture in it. IME within about 15 min is good.

Haven't tried this method with a guitar, but seems like it should work.

that´s the way i did on my first (and last...) two guitars. real easy, even for me.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

it seems to me that your selection of operations to transfer to hide and those in which to retain tb does not consistently reflect the stucturally advantageous properties of hhg nor the ease of use, i.e. longer open time of tb.

for example, the neck and tail blocks are structurally stressed components where the lack of creep inherent in hhg would be advantageous, while at the same time being easy quick operation which lend themselves to beginning hhg users skill development. yet you include them for tb retention. the same could be said for plate joining, linings...etc. i would say linings are much easier to do with hhg than binding/purfling sandwiches.

yet gluing on the plates, to me at least, is a more difficult operation to learn to get right with hhg.

as todd says, with planning, heat and rehearsal, none are all that difficult. the secret lies in doing the preparation slowly, taking the time to plan, rehearse, assemble the necessary aids to assist you and have a well ordered work space wherein you know the location of and and can find every item without searching for it.

have fun!

Yep. Fish glue is the bomb. Lee Valley sells it. I use it for most joints on which I don't use HH. I still use Titebond or LMI White for certain operations from time to time, but not that many. The "cure" time is 12 hours, but if you look on the Titebond label I think it says about the same thing. Clamp time is greater with fish than HH or TB, but you don't need to clamp for 12 hours. Clean up isn't bad. Todd's right - not as easy as HH glue cleanup, but better than Titebond. Shake the bottle before each use (I've heard tell that the glue can separate if left untouched for a while).

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Aaron Craig