My neighbor's drawer came apart and he wants me to fix it properly. It has very gappy dovetails and a sheen on the outside that looks like either hide glue had been painted on or some other glue had been used at a later date. The right side came apart from the front and the back of the loose side is warped out 1/8" from the bottom.
Questions:
Who works with hide glue?
Will it remelt with a hair dryer or carefully applied hot air gun?
Will liquid hide glue work on top of old pot-applied hide glue?
I carefully applied some yellow glue to the warped back to test the strength and it doesn't appear that it will hold.
What would YOU do in this case?
-- Remember: Every silver lining has a cloud. ----
That's the only thing I used to use .. but not for a long while...
Traditional Wood Working Techniques (The Best of FW) has an article on Failing Joints and Glues and specifically reccommends hide glue if you know you will have to repair a joint eventually. (Which is probably a yes... for any joint.) See: Coping with failing joints by Bob Flexner Pg. 54 ISBN 0-924391-94-2
FWIW
I just got some Tite Bond (original formula) today, but will take the information from a few posters on this forum and get one of the heating pots and some hide glue pellets and go back to that glue for inside "fine" furniture, jewel boxes and musical instruments.
Would have bought the hide glue today but iws $7 for a few ounces and $8 for a quart of Titebond and I need some large quantities immediately.
Tray a hair dryer -- I would :-) Caould you make it worse?
You will have to remove any yellow glue and build up the joints again where you removed wood. The "artifical" glue seals the wood so hide glue won't be re-absorbed.
Good luck. You will probably need it.
Larry Jaques wrote:
Used to. Believe my info to be correct - but remember info is worth what you paid for it. :-)
It should. It should melt below the boiling point of water. If you recall you are supposed to use a double boiler to melt hide glue...
140 - 145
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It should. -- mutually dissolves...
Now you have to remove it -- and probably a bit of wood.
Me? -- Probaly faster to make them a new drawer. You did need a commission did't you?
Loads of people. It's a bit of a pain to use, but it's good stuff.
It's like shellac. Yes, you can re-work these materials. But only when they're relatively fresh. By the time they're old enough to actually start failing, they've gone beyond when you can still rework them successfully.
That's probably your best solution. So long as the underlying coating is stable, then more over the top is fine. But a layer of new glue over a layer of dust is about as stable as an avalanche corniche.
I usually go over old glue with a scraper. What doesn't come off with a light pass is OK to stay.
I wouldn't expect glue to hold wood somewhere where it doesn't want to go. Don't sit on a warped panel and expect glue to hold it down forever. Nail it if you have to (this is usual for drawer bottoms, as it allows more moisture shrinkage). Maybe even replace the panel.
On Fri, 04 Mar 2005 01:03:59 +0000, the inscrutable Andy Dingley spake:
Right. I can see that now. It's way too powdery.
After soaking the loose joint quickly in hot water, I was able to remove it and found at least THREE different types of glue embedded in the joints. I scraped what I could and will use some 5-minute epoxy on it tomorrow, once it's well dried. A hair dryer took most of the hummerditty out of it today.
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While I'll completely agree with Andy, the biggest problem I've seen are those old, varied repair attempts. Even with epoxy, you've got a lot of scraping and cleaning to get a good base. I remember one that had epoxy on top of the old stuff, and it came off in chunks. As you did here, I've found that hot water and heat work the best. GerryG
On Thu, 03 Mar 2005 22:47:13 -0600, the inscrutable Patriarch spake:
After disassembling the side, I saw rounded half-blind dovies covered in all those different glues and knew it would be no shame to use epoxy on this POS. Especially for $5-10.
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