Hide Glue?

[Luke Dupont]

Yesterday, I was in Tokyu Hands, and saw something I didn't expect to see:

Hide glue! This hide glue was made by Tite-bond, and in liquid form. I suppose it doesn't spoil in an airtight container, or they use some preservatives. In any case, curiosity got the better of me, and I bought some. I enjoy learning about all things Historical, so I figured it would be a good chance for me to learn about this all-important adhesive.

Do any of you used hide glue? How prone really is it to coming apart with humidity? Any advantages?

I think I'll use it myself -- on my own projects which I can easily reglue and repair if need-be, and see how it works. Reversibility seems like a nice aspect, as there have been occasions where I wanted to be able to unglue things if need-be. Also curious if it's easier to clean-up after than PVA (which is quite difficult to remove from corners and the like).

[Warren Mickley]

I was taught to use hide glue in 1966. The man who taught me was part of a family that has made musical instruments since at least 1644. I recommend learning to use it for joinery so that your work can be easily taken apart for repair. The use of yellow glue can triple the cost of repairing a piece of furniture.

A Winterthur study showed that liquid hide glue weakened when the humidity reached 80 or 90%. They concluded that that was acceptable since in a museum setting humidity is controlled. Hot hide glue does not have a problem with humidity. Liquid hide glue also has a shelf life, maybe a year or somewhat less. After a while it gets kind of rubbery. Hide glue does not have shelf life problems either.

Liquid hide glue was designed for those who cannot learn to use hot hide glue. They want something that could be applied like the glues they were familiar with. The feature that people have trouble with is the relatively quick setting time for hide glue. However this is also a great advantage; clamping times and waiting times are much shorter.

[Paul Bent]

I love hot hide glue. Liquid hide not so much. Hot hide = crockpot, thermometer and cheap mason jar and a big a$$ brush to quickly apply it... Easy to use, smear it on, assemble joint, scrape excess off. Easy to clean up. And easy to take apart when not paying attention. Very slick when initially going together which is helpful on tight joints but can be a pain on glue ups if you aren't paying attention when clamping. Think you might need a glue block somewhere. Rub one on ahead of time and pop it off when done. Clean any glue that remains with water. Easy peasy. Life is good for me when I use it provided I have a clamping strategy, but that applies to all glue use.. Liquid hide is more similar to working with yellow/white glues in my book.

[Stan Calow]

Its pretty available here, even in basic hardware stores. I use the liquid HG frequently. Having read several articles in woodworking magazines over the years testing strength of glues and comparing pros and cons, I was convinced it holds its own for most indoor projects. Its not that sensitive to heat and humidity as you seem to think. I just try to buy the smallest bottle to last just long enough for each project.

[Luke Dupont]

I was taught to use hide glue in 1966. The man who taught me was part of a family that has made musical instruments since at least 1644. I recommend learning to use it for joinery so that your work can be easily taken apart for repair. The use of yellow glue can triple the cost of repairing a piece of furniture.

A Winterthur study showed that liquid hide glue weakened when the humidity reached 80 or 90%. They concluded that that was acceptable since in a museum setting humidity is controlled. Hot hide glue does not have a problem with humidity. Liquid hide glue also has a shelf life, maybe a year or somewhat less. After a while it gets kind of rubbery. Hide glue does not have shelf life problems either.

Liquid hide glue was designed for those who cannot learn to use hot hide glue. They want something that could be applied like the glues they were familiar with. The feature that people have trouble with is the relatively quick setting time for hide glue. However this is also a great advantage; clamping times and waiting times are much shorter.

Ah, interesting! I didn't know it set faster than PVA / Yellow wood glue. Really good point on repairs, too - I can't imagine how I would take apart joinery glued together with PVA.

If I squeeze out some of the liquid hide glue, let it dry out, and make it up on the stove fresh, will it act like traditional hide glue, or still be different to work with?

I guess I'll use what I have for now, and perhaps look into making or buying traditional hide glue next time.

[Luke Dupont]

I love hot hide glue. Liquid hide not so much. Hot hide = crockpot, thermometer and cheap mason jar and a big a$$ brush to quickly apply it... Easy to use, smear it on, assemble joint, scrape excess off. Easy to clean up. And easy to take apart when not paying attention. Very slick when initially going together which is helpful on tight joints but can be a pain on glue ups if you aren't paying attention when clamping. Think you might need a glue block somewhere. Rub one on ahead of time and pop it off when done. Clean any glue that remains with water. Easy peasy. Life is good for me when I use it provided I have a clamping strategy, but that applies to all glue use.. Liquid hide is more similar to working with yellow/white glues in my book.

You put the hide glue in the crockpot? Or in the mason jar which you then put in the crockpot?
I'm assuming it gets caked into whatever container I heat it in, meaning I should have a dedicated glue pot -- preferably one that can sit on a stove.

[John K Jordan]

You put the hide glue in the crockpot? Or in the mason jar which you then put in the crockpot?
I'm assuming it gets caked into whatever container I heat it in, meaning I should have a dedicated glue pot -- preferably one that can sit on a stove.

I heat hide glue on a little hotplate. I put the glue in a short jar set in a small saucepan with water. I wouldn't use anything I wanted to keep clean. A thermometer is good - don't get it too hot.

I started using hide glue when rebuilding an old player piano. If it hadn't originally been put together with hide glue I would have never gotten it without destroying things. My player-piano mentor told me to be nice to the next guy who rebuilds it!

JKJ

[Brian Holcombe]

Warren, thanks for posting your experience on hot hide. I may be moving that direction as I find liquid hide to be frustrating at times, the setting time is very long with liquid hide which is occasionally handy but mainly just adds to the clamping time required. I end up avoiding it because it disturbs the workflow. I think I will start using hot hide soon.

[James Waldron]

Another virtue of hot hide glue is the "rubbed joint" wherein glue is applied to two surfaces to be joined and the pieces are put together with a sliding, rubbing action into position. The glue will tack up and the joint will seize in place. While it needs additional drying time to be really secure, it typically won't need clamping to make a fine bond. If additional handling is going to occur right away, clamping is generally prudent to avoid over-stressing the rubbed joint

[Mark Gibney]

I used liquid hide glue for the first time last night, and I like the workability.

I was gluing legs to stool seats - round thru tenons, wedged.
The yellow glue was gripping so fast it was difficult to get to slots on the end of tenons into alignment in time.
With the hide glue I had more time to align the joint. It was similar to using slow setting epoxy, but with easier clean up.

[Paul Bent]

One other nice thing about hot hide glue is that as it dries it pulls the joint tighter. This is where rubbed joints shine.

[Brian Holcombe]

Yellow glue can seize up a joint, especially when it is getting thicker (as it ages a few months). I had some chair joints fitted perfectly and had one seize up on me 1/32” from closing. I stopped using yellow glue after that for critical work left indoors other than plain glue-ups. Not worth the risk on anything designed with a lot of glue surface.

[Mike Henderson]

I tried hot hide glue. Now I understand why most woodworkers moved away from it once modern glues became available. I found the following problems:

1. You can't just go out in the shop and glue something. It takes a while for the glue to get hot. With modern glues, you go to the shop and do your glue up immediately. This is especially an advantage when you just have some small glue up to do.
2. The glue goes bad after a while (once it it made up from the glue crystals). If you haven't been in the shop for a while, you'll probably have to start from glue crystals.
3. Gluing a complex piece is almost impossible. The glue cools and it won't hold. For example, I tried to glue up some dovetails. To do that, you have to put glue on the tails and pins. Try as I might, I could not apply the glue fast enough that it was still soft by the time I put the joint together. I suspect our ancestors must have heated the wood in some manner and had multiple people working on a glue up to get a complex piece glued up. The open time of modern glues is waaaay longer.

People say that reversibility is an advantage of hot glue but I've not encountered a situation yet where I needed to take a joint apart. I've repaired a lot of chairs that were glued with modern glues and I never felt that it would have been easier if hide glue was used. The way a chair fails, the wood breaks loose (the glue doesn't fail) so you have to do some joinery fixes, and not just re-glue the joint (if you want to do a good, long lasting repair).

No, I tried hot hide glue and I'll stick with the modern glues.

Mike

[Julie Moriarty]

Do any of you used hide glue? How prone really is it to coming apart with humidity? Any advantages?
I use hot hide glue occasionally. I mix it myself. I have 192 gram strength and 315 gram strength. It's great for jobs that require fast cure. I've tried to remove parts glued together with hide glue and it wasn't nearly as easy as I have read. But there is a learning curve to using it. I love it but will admit the fact you have to mix it and wait for it to heat up is sometimes a deterrent to using it.

I have never used hide glue from a bottle but I hear it has different properties than the stuff you mix.

[John K Jordan]

People say that reversibility is an advantage of hot glue but I've not encountered a situation yet where I needed to take a joint apart.

The player piano rebuilding is the one place I know of where "ungluing" is very helpful. There were a bunch of parts such as bellows made of thin wood that I took apart by heating through the wood with an old clothes iron. The glue softened and the joint came apart. The bellows cloth was held on by hide glue too so I could very easily remove it with heat and prep the wood for the new cloth. If I remember correctly, there were over 75 bellows in the piano that had to have the cloth replaced, three different weights of cloth.

We sometimes think we are technically clever today - it's sobering to see the complex engineering that went into a foot-powered buffered-energy vacuum-driven mechanical system primarily made of wood and cloth and leather capable of positioning a strip of paper precisely over a sensor array while dynamically compensating for size variations, moving the paper at a regulated speed over the sensors, and precisely triggering sensitive double-acting valves to simultaneously strike multiple piano hammers, sometimes at high repetition rates. (okay, that's a mouthful) The mechanism is lubricated with graphite and typically works reliably for decades with no maintenance!

JKJ

[Tom Stenzel]

The place that I volunteer at (https://redfordtheatre.com) the people that maintain the pipe organ use hot hide glue. Because in 90 years from now someone might have to fix it again!

An instance is some of the actuators are hinged wooden blocks with leather bellows. They have to be renewed every couple of decades or so.

-Tom

[Mark Gibney]

Can't speak for anyone else but having read John's description I now really want to see the insides of one of these bellows driven pianos / organs.

[John K Jordan]

Can't speak for anyone else but having read John's description I now really want to see the insides of one of these bellows driven pianos / organs.

Better yet, pick up an old one that doesn't work and rebuild it! I spent a month rebuilding mine. This was a few decades ago and it still works like new. BTW, the pump organs are trivial inside - go for a player piano!

[Jeff Ranck]

I tried hot hide glue. Now I understand why most woodworkers moved away from it once modern glues became available. I found the following problems:
...
3. Gluing a complex piece is almost impossible. The glue cools and it won't hold. For example, I tried to glue up some dovetails. To do that, you have to put glue on the tails and pins. Try as I might, I could not apply the glue fast enough that it was still soft by the time I put the joint together. I suspect our ancestors must have heated the wood in some manner and had multiple people working on a glue up to get a complex piece glued up. The open time of modern glues is waaaay longer.

...

Mike

Open times can be extended by adding salt or urea, yah? Still, you are right. With hide glue, a glue up is a planned event like finishing.

[Richard Hutchings]

I used Titebond hide glue to repair my fiddle about 20 years ago. Steamed the back off, fixed a crack and glued it back on. I think it could be steamed off again because I used it.

I've since built 3 mandolins using nothing but hide glue crystals and a Rival water pot. I learned from some violin making videos glue up the rim and the top or back and let dry. Then I put the back onto the rim set with lots of clamps. Remove one clamp and let in some steam and reclamp. I had all the time in the world to get it done.

One thing about hide glue I have read is that you absolutely need the steam to undo the joint. Heat alone will not do it.

[Dan Carroll]

I have become a fan of hot hide glue. I first used it when I had some old veneer to repair and I have not looked back. Any glue up and clamping needs to be thought out in advance and tested before glue is applied. I have also taken to keeping a heat gun and spray bottle of water around when doing complex joints in case I need to get a little give while clamping up. Hide glue sets up in a two stage process and the first one involves the cooling of the the glue. It does cool fast and it will hold, but the hold is not very strong until it sets up by drying out over a day or so. A little heat carefully reapplied while can eliminate most of the fast set up issues. I still use PVC glues when I want a rub joint that will never be disassembled.

[James Waldron]

I tried hot hide glue. Now I understand why most woodworkers moved away from it once modern glues became available. I found the following problems:

1. You can't just go out in the shop and glue something. It takes a while for the glue to get hot. With modern glues, you go to the shop and do your glue up immediately. This is especially an advantage when you just have some small glue up to do.
2. The glue goes bad after a while (once it it made up from the glue crystals). If you haven't been in the shop for a while, you'll probably have to start from glue crystals.
3. Gluing a complex piece is almost impossible. The glue cools and it won't hold. For example, I tried to glue up some dovetails. To do that, you have to put glue on the tails and pins. Try as I might, I could not apply the glue fast enough that it was still soft by the time I put the joint together. I suspect our ancestors must have heated the wood in some manner and had multiple people working on a glue up to get a complex piece glued up. The open time of modern glues is waaaay longer.

People say that reversibility is an advantage of hot glue but I've not encountered a situation yet where I needed to take a joint apart. I've repaired a lot of chairs that were glued with modern glues and I never felt that it would have been easier if hide glue was used. The way a chair fails, the wood breaks loose (the glue doesn't fail) so you have to do some joinery fixes, and not just re-glue the joint (if you want to do a good, long lasting repair).

No, I tried hot hide glue and I'll stick with the modern glues.

Mike

I tried becoming a quarterback. I took my placed behind the center and took the snap and heaved the ball down the field. I found the following problems:

1. The pass was intercepted by some cornerback dude who ran it in for a touchdown by the other team.
2. Two - count 'em, two - defensive ends hit me just as I released the ball; I ended up with a broken collar bone and two cracked ribs. They claim I had a concussion, too, but I don't remember that.
3. Since it was a try-out, I didn't get paid.

I've found a new level of respect for Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers and even Blake Bortles. I'll stick to something I know.

No, I tried football and I'll stick to racing sailboats. :D

Jim

[John Cole]

Hide glue squeezout will not affect your finish like a PVA glue will.

[Warren Mickley]

I got a chuckle out of Mike and Jim's posts. I was thinking if you tried a violin for a day, it might not sound as good as the modern U tube.

I wrote this about the double iron plane on another forum in 2007, but it could just as easily been turned around:

If the idea of learning to use hot hide glue turns you off, the double iron is not for you. It takes a fair amount of practice to get a good feel for it. I can say that the benefits of learning are well worth the effort and I would not want to be without it.

If you want to learn this stuff it is very helpful to have someone to watch who has some facility with the stuff. Not everything that is worthwhile can be learned from an instruction book and done easily the first time. We do the craft a disservice when we limit ourselves to skills that can be learned in a short time. Many of today's craft teachers are engaged in dumbing down techniques to eliminate traditional skills which are "almost imposssible" to learn.

With hide glue you want to prepare everything, clamps, glue blocks and such and to rehearse (at least mentally) so that you are not hunting a prop while the glue is cooling. The upshot is that you learn to work in a very disciplined manner.

[Hasin Haroon]

Hi Warren - do you have any tips for carcase dovetail glue ups? I find hot hide glue fine for a regular mortise and tenon joint, but for something like a carcase side, where there are a bunch of dovetails to spread glue on, the glue on the first few pins/tails sets by the time I'm putting the case together. Any practical shop tips for something such as this that doesn't require assistance from someone else?

[Brian Holcombe]

Warren, would you add urea or salt to the mix for joinery?

[Warren Mickley]

Hi Warren - do you have any tips for carcase dovetail glue ups? I find hot hide glue fine for a regular mortise and tenon joint, but for something like a carcase side, where there are a bunch of dovetails to spread glue on, the glue on the first few pins/tails sets by the time I'm putting the case together. Any practical shop tips for something such as this that doesn't require assistance from someone else?

I have never used additives in hide glue.

For a large carcass, label matching corners so that you don't get mixed up. Use the same labeling convention every time.

Lay the tail board on the bench with corner 1 on the left and 2 on the right. Put pin board corner 1 upright in vise. Apply glue to these pins and the tails on corner i and then seat these together, so the pin board is straight up. Then do the same for corner 2, so both corners are together and both pin boards are straight up.

For a big carcass I like to put the glue pot right on the tail board 1-2 and lay the other tail board on the bench also. Then apply glue to pins at corners 3&4 and the other tail board and assemble.

It is important to get this all together quickly, but once together you still have some time to squeeze tight with clamps if you want and to check the diagonals for square. The clamps don't need to be on for more than a few seconds.

I have done hundreds of these; it doesn't seem hard in hindsight, but when I had small children one of them sometimes helped spread glue. I suppose you could contrive a way to put corner 3 together and leave corner 4 apart enough to get glue on in a separated step rather than having to do the last two corners at once.

[Brian Holcombe]

Thanks Warren, appreciate the insights.

[James Waldron]

To confess, I'm too old to race sailboats any more. But I couldn't resist jerking Mike's chain. I hope he has a sense of humor - or at least enough tolerance to indulge an old fart.

I don't use urea very often and I've never used salt. I often do cheat and heat the parts before the glue-up; a heat gun is one of the few tailed tools I use. It works nicely and helps a lot with big joints, e.g. a carcass glue-up. Making sure the glue pot is up to temp is also very important. If you rush in and try a glue-up before it's fully up to temp or let it cool off before you use it, it's not going to be fun. (To tell the truth, I don't actually build a lot of furniture any more and I've long since left yacht joinery behind. I occasionally build small boats these days and I use more epoxy than any other adhesive. I suspect my glue pot is full of dust and shavings these days - wherever it's been stashed.)

I'm with Warren on planning and preparation. His carcass procedure is just plain sensible whatever adhesive you use and doubly so with hot hide glue. I've found that you can't walk into the shop and slap a joint together and rely on it to come out well. And for folks with short shop hours, it can be a problem, as Mike said. And it does go bad if you hold it too long. Mike is right about that too, so don't make up much more than you will use in your session, with a small excess for a reserve. But once you've got a handle on its use, you'll learn to appreciate it and maybe even grow to prefer it.

[Jerry Olexa]

REversability is its biggest plus in my view

[Julie Moriarty]

When I was doing the planking on a model sailboat, I found hot hide glue invaluable. Pinning those tiny planks so they form to the hull and waiting for PVA glue to dry was taking forever. When I switched to hot hide glue I could get 3-4 times as many planks laid in the same time it took with PVA. Cleanup was also a joy. No need to worry about glue marks ruining the finish.

One comment I found interesting was when someone said, "I hope you're not going to put that boat in water!" There was some story about a Roman emperor who wanted to murder his wife. He made a boat using hide glue to secure the planking and gave the boat to his wife as a gift. When she sailed it out onto open water.....

[Mike Henderson]

Hide glue squeezout will not affect your finish like a PVA glue will.

In my experience, that is not true. People told me it wouldn't show, so when I used hot hide glue on a project, I wasn't careful about getting the hide glue on the wood. When I finished the piece, I could see all the places where the hide glue was left on the wood. I had to strip and refinish the piece.

No, even if you use hot hide glue, you have to be careful about getting it on the finish surface and you have to clean up your squeeze out, exactly the same as a modern glue, such as PVA, or it will show in the finish.

Mike

[Richard Hutchings]

It rolls right off with a finger if wait for the squeeze out to jell in about 15 minutes.

[Andrew Seemann]

I went through a hide glue phase (both real and liquid) about a dozen years ago. I even got the neat "Hold Heet" glue pot -I stumbled on one for cheap one day. My experience was that while disadvantages of hide glue are probably overstated, the advantages are as well.

For the most part it isn't really that hard to work with, once you get the hang of it, and it is quite strong. For most interior work that won't be in higher humidity environments it is just fine. For some things it works probably better than anything else; for real hide glue the quick set can be an advantage, and liquid the long open time can make some kinds of complex glue ups less stressful. Though it isn't as invisible under stain and finish as its reputation (although thinned down it was/can be used as a size) it isn't completely stain-phobic either and doesn't show up as obviously as PVA based glue.

That said, unless I really need one of the advantages of either type of hide glue, I rarely use it anymore, maybe a few times a year. It is a little too easy to get a cold joint where the glue doesn't bond right, and you always seem to find out about it too late. I've found most of the failures in furniture that I have repaired were in joints with hide glue, usually they were glue starved (probably from going too fast) or the joint got assembled cold and didn't bond. Also, hide glue doesn't have a slow creep like PVA or yellow glues, so cracking of the wood or failure of the joint from wood movement seem more common. Additionally furniture stored in a damp environment like a basement sometimes doesn't fare well with hide glue.

For most (though not all) woodworking, regular modern cold glues like Titebond are much easier and simpler and work just as well.

On a side note, if you want to start a fist fight, say "glue" to a bunch of guitar or harpsichord builders. For them glue almost becomes its own religion.

[Keith Mathewson]

A little off topic, I’ve been wanting for this person to make another run of these for awhile. Is anybody else interested?
http://www.hotdiptin.com/blog/spoons

[Kees Heiden]

An informative blogpost about hideglue and humidity: https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/the-efficacy-of-animal-glue/

What draws me the most to hideglue is the witch craft. Boiling cauldrons with funny smelling potions.

[Richard Hutchings]

Awesome, thanks for posting that.


An informative blogpost about hideglue and humidity: https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2013/04/07/the-efficacy-of-animal-glue/

What draws me the most to hideglue is the witch craft. Boiling cauldrons with funny smelling potions.

[Leo Passant]

If you want to learn this stuff it is very helpful to have someone to watch who has some facility with the stuff. Not everything that is worthwhile can be learned from an instruction book and done easily the first time. We do the craft a disservice when we limit ourselves to skills that can be learned in a short time. Many of today's craft teachers are engaged in dumbing down techniques to eliminate traditional skills which are "almost imposssible" to learn.

With hide glue you want to prepare everything, clamps, glue blocks and such and to rehearse (at least mentally) so that you are not hunting a prop while the glue is cooling. The upshot is that you learn to work in a very disciplined manner.

Never a truer word! Occasional experience of anything will never make a master.

Eighteenth-century cabinetmakers seemingly made more beautiful furniture using animal glue than the majority of people can today using PVA.

See more animal glue experiences here (https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2009/09/17/glue-not-adhesive/)and here (https://pegsandtails.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/on-the-dismantling-and-reassembly-of-glued-joints/).

[john jesseph]

You can make a lot of great stuff with PVA glue and polyurethane finish. I like hide glue and shellac and/or varnish.