titebond liquid hide glue

[Jake Darvall]

Hi,

I was wondering what people think of this product.

I'm interested in a hide glue so my chairs can be easily repaired.

thanks kindly for any ideas

Jake darvall

[Bruce Hazelden]

Disapointed!!! I have used liguid hide glue on two projects and I find the glue does not bond well to MDF substrate and it creeps out of joints and from under veneers leaving a ridge of glueline months after completion. This happens when the humidity is higher than the normal low humidity we experience in South Australia. I will not use it again. I would like to use Unibond 800 but it is difficult to find here. SMC is a great resource. Keep it up.
Cheers, Bruce

[mike holden]

Jake,
Just for an opposing viewpoint, the footstool shown was made in 2005 with liquid hide glue joints. No problems, and living here in SE Michigan the humidity regularly reaches the high 90's.

But I have since moved on to hot hide glue and prefer it for the quicker setup time, using the liquid stuff only for those occasions I dont/didnt take the time for the hot pot. Why are you not going to hot hide glue?

103325

Mike

[David Werkheiser]

Hide glue is kind of a speciality glue these days. If your regluing chairs from the 1930s or earlier, than hide glue will bond and reactivate the old glue (especially if you heat it), but it will not bond with yellow glues (PVA)
The problem with moisture can be a problem, except when you want to reverse a bond. Guitar makers use it to reset necks.
DavidW

[Rich Enders]

I have been using the Titebond, and the hot interchangeably since the early 90's. I can't tell the difference, although I have read that the premixed stuff is weaker.

No glue joints have failed so far.

[Jake Darvall]

Thanks kindly for the ideas.

I'm a joiner. yellow and epoxy glues is all I really know. Never tried hide glue.

Starting to make chairs. First one I went epoxy, but have been since told its not the thing to do. repair wise.

[Jack Briggs]

Please do not think of bottled 'hide glue' as hide glue. There is much modification to make it work at room temperature. As such the bond is nowhere near as strong.

If you want to use hide glue, but can't deal with it's idiosyncratic narrow temperature working range, you can add table salt to the cooked mixture to lower the usable pot temp. This works very well and the bond is indistinguishable from unmodified hot hide glue.



Cheers,

[Doug Shepard]

I used it to put the leather jaw liners on my bench and liked it. Also used it to temporarily hold some shell for shaping then disolved it away with hot water. Just keep pets away until it's cured. It smells like heaven to them and they'll happily lick it up.

[David Keller NC]

"Starting to make chairs. First one I went epoxy, but have been since told its not the thing to do. repair wise."

True enough, but I wouldn't worry about it if you're not making authentic, reproduction chairs from the 18th or 19th century. Almost everything is made today with PVA, Polyurethane, or resin glues, and I can garantee that someone 100 years from now needing to repair such furniture will have a way to do it.

I do use hot hide glue almost exclusively, but almost everything I make is a reproduction of some sort. If this is the route you choose, buy a "hold heet" electric glue pot and some dried hide glue. You'll find, I think, that hot hide glue is very, very easy to work with. The only downside is that you must wait 24 hours in clamps for the glue to properly set and dry, but for a one-man shop, that may not be too big of a deal.

[Mike Henderson]

Thanks kindly for the ideas.

I'm a joiner. yellow and epoxy glues is all I really know. Never tried hide glue.

Starting to make chairs. First one I went epoxy, but have been since told its not the thing to do. repair wise.
I use epoxy on my chairs. The joint that gets the most stress is where the seat goes into the back stiles - eventually, it will fail. But when it does, you can usually get the joint apart and re-glue it with new epoxy.

If you have a chair that won't come apart (and it's not an heirloom and it MUST be repaired for some reason), I pry the joint apart slightly and use thin saw to saw off the tenon. Then I drill out the mortise (remove the old tenon) and make a mortise on the chair seat. Then use a loose tenon to repair it.

Of course, for a well made chair, we're talking a LONG time before that joint fails.

Mike

[Rick Phelan]

Damn, Doug's post reminds me of a funny experience I had years ago building a deck. I had a sanding block among my tools strewn all over the yard and was/am famous (at least in my own mind) for spending more time looking for the implement I just laid down somewhere than fabricating. I had a big Japanese Akita named Tux who used to spend time with me - probably for the amusement factor.

One day, I did a quick endge sand on a piece of cedar, set down my block and picked up a chisel for a quick adjustment, reached down for the block and it was gone!! Looked all over the place, did some rather colourful praying, but it was nowhere to be found. Neither was Tux.

I went around the corner to find him digging a hole and burying my sanding block. I guess the paper was manufactured with animal glue. It was irresistable to him - I did a couple of test laydowns of the block and good old Tux grabbed it every time for a decent burial. I can't imagine what the 80 grit felt like on his teeth.

Fun to reminisce about the big lad - he was a good fella' and is long gone. I miss him.

R.

[Jake Darvall]

thanks.

"Starting to make chairs. First one I went epoxy, but have been since told its not the thing to do. repair wise."

True enough, but I wouldn't worry about it if you're not making authentic, reproduction chairs from the 18th or 19th century. Almost everything is made today with PVA, Polyurethane, or resin glues, and I can garantee that someone 100 years from now needing to repair such furniture will have a way to do it.



yep, my hearts on making old style spindle type chairs actually. Makes the decision complicated for me. Just got the idea browsing the net and saw an american nantucket fanback and just loved its lines. so I printed out all I could find and had a go.

What I'd like though, is for these chairs to survive on veranda's (porch?). I'm worried that hide glue may not be good enough for this sort of thing.

maybe its unrealistic to expect any chair to survive well out there.

Here's a pic of my chair. Epoxied up the joints. (probably overkill) I painted it black and left it on my front porch over winter. Really next to no rain during winter, just a lot of sun. And this is how quickly it weared just after 3 months. (last pic)

Just wondering, if I'd used hide glue over epoxy, would the joints be loose as well from that sort of exposure ?

[David Keller NC]

"What I'd like though, is for these chairs to survive on veranda's (porch?). I'm worried that hide glue may not be good enough for this sort of thing.

maybe its unrealistic to expect any chair to survive well out there.

Here's a pic of my chair. Epoxied up the joints. (probably overkill) I painted it black and left it on my front porch over winter. Really next to no rain during winter, just a lot of sun. And this is how quickly it weared just after 3 months. (last pic)

Just wondering, if I'd used hide glue over epoxy, would the joints be loose as well from that sort of exposure ? "

If the chairs are going to be outside, hide glue is not a very good choice for longevity. However, keep in mind that Windsors originated as outdoor garden furniture in the UK, and for the most part, were engineered to not require glue.

It's rather easily possible to make one of these and use no glue at all - the joints are put together so that they tighten when someone sits in the chair, unlike joined chairs where the joints loosen over time.

Most of the truly 18th century Windsors have a slightly different construction method than today's Windsor makers - the back spindles were not tapered, and the armrest and back comb were cross-pinned into the back spindles, usually with nails, though there are plenty of examples that used wooden pegs for the purpose.

From the standpoint of longevity on the porch, you may need to go to a high-tech wood finishing solution - first coating the entire chair with a thin epoxy, followed by a spar varnish with a bunch of UV absorbers in it.

THe damage you're seeing, by the way, isn't all that much from the sunlight exposure, it's from the expansion and contraction of the wood due to rapid humidity changes in an outdoor environment. That's one reason for the two part epoxy/spar varnish treatment - the epoxy seals the wood and prevents a lot of the moisture exchange, and the spar varnish with the UV absorbers protects the epoxy from UV damage.

[Jake Darvall]

Thankyou kindly David. been most helpful. owe you a favour.

I'll do some experiementing with epoxy and varnish with my next chair.

[Michael Kellough]

Bumping an older thread since the title is appropriate...

Wanting a reversible adhesive I bought some Titebond Liquid Hide Glue and my impression is that a hot humid climate is not suitable if this stuff is used as an adhesive.

Wood glued and clamped for 24 hours at 70-80 degrees F and 70-80 percent humidity was easily pulled apart and the glue was almost tacky enough that the wood could be re-clamped.

The glue was from a new bottle that still had 6 months before the expiration date.
It should still be usable when the climate changes so I'll give it another try then...

I was hoping to avoid the hassle of gearing up for hot hide glue but that will be less hassle than air conditioning my shop...

[Mel Fulks]

I agree with Jack. Some smart guys here like it ,but its got chemicals in it to keep it liquid ,I can't get beyond that . A friend ,whose work I had a lot of confidence in,experienced some joint failures using it.

[Bill Bukovec]

Doug, Where did you find the leather for your jaw liners? Bill

[Peter Quinn]

I used the tite bond hyde glue on a bookcase project last year, lots of tenons to glue up, worked like a charm, no failures to date. Easy to use, easy clean up, strong enough for the purpose. I pegged all the tenons. The bookcase was built in such a way that creep would not be easy to perceive, so I can't speak to that. I'd use it again. Just not for outdoor furniture.

[Brett Robson]

I use it all the time and really haven't had problems with it. I did have one time in gluing a veneer to a drawer front where the glue didn't dry and the veneer peeled up off the substrate after a day in the clamps.

I peeled it the rest of the way off, cleaned the old glue off with some hot water and re-glued it once everything had dried. The second attempt was perfect and the glue performed as it should.

Odd, really, as the glue came from the same bottle and was gluing the same pieces under the same environmental conditions in my basement shop.

[David C. Roseman]

I've used the Titebond Hide Glue successfully to repair a 200+ y/o footstool originally assembled with hot hide glue. Just didn't seem right to use aliphatic resin glue, although hot hide glue would have been even more appropriate. Has held up fine for years, but then it's not exposed to the elements.

Jake, you didn't ask for comments on your chair, but your work is beautiful!

David

[Howard Acheson]

Why do you think they will need to be repaired? Most chairs that need repair are assembled with hide glue. Hide glue gets brittle as it dries. The stresses as folks sit in chairs puts a lot of racking force on the joints. Because hide glue is brittle, it will ultimately fail.

OK then, what to use. In our shop we made lots of chairs for a couple interior designers. We contracted with a testing company to determine what adhesive would be best. The answer was that slow set two part epoxy worked best. Epoxy has a slight amount of flexibility and did not fail with small movement in chair joints.

Epoxy can be as easily opened up as most other adhesives. Heating the joint will allow the joint to be disassembled.

Chair failure can be very dangerous so it's best to use an adhesive that minimizes the chance of failure.

[Jim Finn]

I have used Titebond hide glue on small decorative projects. What I like about it is that any squeeze-out that is left virtually disappears when I apply finish. No other glue does that for me. I use it when making wooden flowers, like this..

[Mike OMelia]

Even epoxy is repairable. It is susceptible to heat. Sometimes I wonder what choices old timers would have made had they the choice of hot hide glue and epoxy . :)

Mike

[Michael Kellough]

Bumping an older thread since the title is appropriate...

Wanting a reversible adhesive I bought some Titebond Liquid Hide Glue and my impression is that a hot humid climate is not suitable if this stuff is used as an adhesive.

Wood glued and clamped for 24 hours at 70-80 degrees F and 70-80 percent humidity was easily pulled apart and the glue was almost tacky enough that the wood could be re-clamped.

The glue was from a new bottle that still had 6 months before the expiration date.
It should still be usable when the climate changes so I'll give it another try then...

I was hoping to avoid the hassle of gearing up for hot hide glue but that will be less hassle than air conditioning my shop...


Follow-up...

After a couple of days and a substantial reduction in both heat and humidity the Titebond liquid hide glue solidified to the point that it was sandable. Which illuminated one of hide glues good features. Even where I sanded through the top layer of veneer and revealed the layer below, the glue line is pretty much invisible. What can be seen looks very natural compared modern glues.

[richard poitras]

Old Brown Glue....

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQMV9jOsanQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQMV9jOsanQ)

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Doug, Where did you find the leather for your jaw liners? Bill

I found leather at a "leather" store that is not too far from where I live. They have entire hides, extras, etc. They do both mail order and drop-ins.

http://www.tandyleatherfactory.com/en-usd/home/home.aspx

How much leather do you need, and what type of face did you want on it?