Titebond hide glue question.

[Dan OShea]

I’m working on a solid cherry top that is 11 feet long and 18 inches wide. The boards are 6 inches wide and 6 foot and 5 foot long so is have staggered the joints and have three butt joints as a result. Edge and face alignment is being provided with dominos with both slots being made “loose” The Butt joints are not dominoed but I superglued blocks to lightly clamp the butt joints together. This is my first large top and realistically glue lines are inevitable so I wanted to use some hide glue to minimize the glue lines. I used the titebond hide glue for my cabinet face frames this winter and did not have an issue but when I picked up the bottle I noticed that the glue on the bottle was tacky. I was careful this winter (mild Georgia winter) to take my glue inside and don’t remember leaving it out in the cold but I could have. I thought perhaps the glue was tacky because it was on plastic and not wood. Since my source for fresh was 3 hours round trip I decided to proceed. Note: weather has been wet. I had a very good glue up last night that ended at 8 pm. Went out to my shop about 6pm and removed the clamps and the butt joint that will be on the front edge of my top moved and was not set at all. With a sponge and a heat gun I disassembled the top washed off the glue
and have re stickered the wood drying rack style. So... Is it just this bottle of cold hide glue that is bad? I read mostly good things about this product so what’s going on and have others had similar problems.

[Andrew Hughes]

That’s been my experience with titebond hide glue. Unreliable
But I was lucky and tested a glue joint before using it on my project. Maybe I bought a old bottle I’ll never know and I’ll never but that stuff again.

[Mel Fulks]

Agree with Andrew. But nothing here is taken for truth without a "second to the motion". I won't use it again either.

[Phil Mueller]

Maybe it’s inconsistent, but my experience is different from Andrew’s. I’ve been using the same bottle for about a year now and it continues to hold/dry well.

[Tony Zaffuto]

Either make your own or buy it prepared. I have a vessel to cook my own hide glue, but find it more convenient to purchase. In other words, I have way more than a half dozen bottles under my belt, and the Titebond has been consistently good. Old Brown Glue has also been been good, but I did have one bottle of it that was as you described. It worked and held, but the tackiness made use difficult (new bottle).

I'm not sure if there are dates of manufacture on either brand, but regardless, if it doesn't feel right, I toss it.

[Ralph Boumenot]

Warm it up first in hot water. That should improve it flowing out and loosening it up

[Justin Rapp]

I have never experienced this issue with hide glue but I don't keep it around long because of shelf-life issues. With all the work put into building something, having fresh glue is worth it. Glue is relatively inexpensive and easy to mail order from mail order supplies with a couple day delivery time. I am in NJ and hide glue shows up from Amazon the day after I order it. I would suspect in Georgia it would be the same or close to the same.

[Andrew Seemann]

It could have frozen at some point or the glue could have gone bad. Regular hide glue (basically unflavored Jello) has a shelf life of days if refrigerated between heatings. Liquid Hide Glue has an additive, probably urea, that allows it to set at room temperature. It has a longer shelf life, closer to a year, but it also can go bad. I don't know for this for a fact, but I also suspect that it could be finicky about temperature, and that hot temps could reduce it shelf life, since bacterial growth is one of the things that make it go bad.

It is important to check the date code when you buy the bottle. Liquid hide glue isn't a big seller, and sometimes if you buy it from someplace that doesn't sell much of it, the bottles can be 6 months old when you get them, which is half of its usable life.

I have never had a problem with it, but I am careful about its age when I use it, and test if it is getting towards the end of its shelf life.

[Dan OShea]

I only could find a lot number on the bottle. That lot number did not look to represent a date 12 week of Jan 2019
120119 for instance.

[Brian Holcombe]

I have mixed feelings about hide glue and dont often use it for anything outside of joinery work in which I would like to be able to repair the work in the future at some point. That said, for items which will be stressed hide glue tends to be 'creakier' in my experience than yellow glue.

So, I tend to use it for large work that I want to be demountable, more often I just pin the joints with a draw bore if I want them to be really demountable.

Plenty of things made with yellow glue get repaired later in life, doesn't make throw-away furniture. What does make throw-away furniture in the modern age seems to be something that lets loose unexpectedly and goes without repair for a time.

[Mel Fulks]

Certainly many have found it convienient. But it requires an ingredient that keeps it liquid. Without that addition it it dries
and holds just fine.

[Andrew Seemann]

Franklin has the date code decoder on their website, in the frequently asked questions part of the Titebond section. Below is the one for the date code.

I can never the pattern off the top of my head, but putting "franklin glue date code" into the interweb usually will bring it up as a result.

How Do I Read The Lot Numbers?

Our current lot numbering system is a 10 digit code. The format is: aymmddbat#. The "a" stands for Made in the U.S.A. The "y" is the last digit of the year of manufacture. Digits "mm" represent the month, and "dd" represent the day of the month. The final four digits represent the batch number used for quality control purposes. Therefore, a product with the lot number A104270023 was manufactured on April 27, 2011.