Official Luthiers Forum!

What glue for bone to Indian rosewood? The bone inlays on my tie-blocks keep on popping off with only slight force applied to them. I've used Titebond Original and I'm sure the glue is good.

superglue or epoxy.

And Poly !
Mike

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Mike Collins

The glue stuck to the rosewood, but appeared to not stick to the bone, which surprised me. The bone is quite dense and smooth and the surface is not porous. I think I'll clean the old titebond off as well as I can and use epoxy next time.

Do other people have problems with titebond in this application?

I would not use Titebond for bone to wood gluing.
As stated before-CA, Epoxy, or Poly.

Mike

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Mike Collins

Out of ignorance, I used Titebond II for everything on my first two guitars (both classicals) and have had no problem with the bone on the tie-block of the bridges. I did, however, wick in some CA to fill gaps, and maybe that's why I had no problem.

I have used Duco cement for stuff like this with good results...Mike

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Guitars, guitars and more guitars.

Hide glue sticks Bone very well. All those fancy 19 th century instruments smothered with MOP or Ivory.

I assume fish glue would be OK? I still have no idea why titebond did not grab onto the bone.

I've had problems with Titebond sticking to particularly smooth and hard bone pieces.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I recently did some bone work , I converted a cow leg bone into some escutcheons for some furniture and now have a decent stash of odd sizes for whatever else I may use it on. possibly build no 2 .
I was glad to have come across this link. It goes into why bone does not stick ,or comes loose

http://www.bearmeadow.com/build/materia ... clean.html

Rob

Fish glue will work wonderfully, so will hide glue, which is no big surprise, as bone is a near relative... Make sure that both the bone and wood are freshly scraped, and that the surfaces mate well. Some pieces of unbleached bone can be difficult to glue, if there is still grease left. CA etc also works, of course.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I used some epoxy and it appears to be holding well - although I haven't stressed tested it.

Thanks everyone.
Steven

I glued bone to ebony with CA, and the string pressure was still enough to pop the tie block off...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

In my experience, Titebond is not suitable for nonporous surfaces.
HHG works pretty well, but I still favor CA for gluing bone.

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John

I like CA as well for that application. I like to use AR glue for the nut though because it gives you a bit of time to wiggle it in place perfectly.