Official Luthiers Forum!

"Hide Glue - Historical & Practical Applications" is a new book by Stephen Shepherd and it's available from http://www.toolsforworkingwood.com/Merchant/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=toolshop&Product_Code=AQ-1131&Category_Code=&Search=hide%20glue

It's a great read and a very fast read too but I wanted to let folks know about this book for two reasons. First, if you are not an IKE (I know everything sort...) you may learn something, I most certainly did. And second there are some notable points of contention between what Mr. Shepherd who is not a Luthier and some of the folks that we all know and love promote when it come to the techniques, care and handling of HHG.

Just to give you a glimpse without, hopefully ruining the book for you here are a few of the things that I found most interesting:

HHG was first used by paleo people tens of thousands of years ago and what was left after boiling hooves, skins, bones, etc. Yum, Yum...

The Neanderthal of Lascaux, France used HHG to help secure the pigment to the famous cave paintings.

There are in existence today examples of 2,000 year old furniture where the HHG joints are still holding! Pretty impressive!

The first mention of HHG in literature appears 2,000 years ago.

Some of the things that are contentious from some of the advice that is widely shared among Luthiers for the use of HHG are:

1) HHG loses some of it's bonding strength every time it is heated...

2) A HHG benefits for keying...

And a few more that you will just have to help put Mr. Shepherd's kids, if he has any, through college if you want to find out about them.

Additionally and of great interest to me are techniques for using HHG with additives for gluing many other kinds of materials including adding some water resistance to the cured glue. It's a fascinating read and I would high recommend the book.

Mr. Shepherd does back up his contentions very well with science and historical research.

You mean, like by giving away the ending?



Could you say this in some other way?

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I'm rather curious about the scientific data he has, which is something that we tend to lack much of on the forums. There's a lot of speculation about what does and doesn't work, especially with glue, and the evidence is often anecdotal or piled on by people blaming glue for user error ('solvent wipes', 'toothing joints', seemingly every topic about epoxy or CA, etc etc).

I haven't read the book yet, but if there's some of that in there then I might have to put it in my 'books to buy' queue. We need to find someone who needs a good topic for their graduate engineering project and reeeeally likes glue

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Hesh,

That looks like an interesting book. One niggly factual correction though, the cave paintings in Lascaux were done by humans (Cro Magnon) not Neanderthals.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Yeah and Dave knows cause he was there!!

Steady on, I'm older than Dave. Does that make me Neanderthal?

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

That would depend entirley upon how much older you actually are and when it was you last had your back shaved Colin

Cheers mate

Kim

Man - was that a party

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Yeah niggly or not Dave buddy the author may be wrong about the Neanderthal of Lascaux but I just rechecked what he says and he does indeed say the Neanderthal of Lascaux.

Here is one of the many things in the book that I found useful AND it's not something that I have ever read prior posted on the forums:

Open Time Until Gel

70F 1/2 to 1 minute
80F 3 - 5 minutes
90F 10-18 minutes

We have some violin makers in my area who use a hot room and keep it about 110F. They get mostly naked, I am told...., go in the room and glue away with no concerns of premature... gelling.

Another tip in the book that I have read pros and cons about here on the OLF is to NOT wipe down oily woods with solvents prior to gluing with HHG. Shepherd says that using solvents just gets the oils moving and may create additional problems.

Both of these tips may be relevant to another current thread where there was adhesion failure for what ever reason.

Anyway I enjoyed the book and if you are like me and cannot get enough of guitar building even when chilling out you may enjoy this book too.

Thanks!

Hesh--

Thanks for the link. HHG is pretty cool stuff. I like the hot room idea -- though I'm wondering if it will be appropriated by Southwest airlines for their new 'fly naked' campaign!

Happy New Year to all!

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Jim Howell
Charlotte, NC

Does he specify gram strength? Open time varies depending on the gram strength of the particular HHG being used. 192g is the most common. I'm assuming that is what these numbers are for. Glue with lower gram strength will take longer to gel and vis versa.

William great question and when I just checked the author does indeed specify that these times are his take on the gelling of 192g glue.

Interestingly he also, in the section that talks about open times, talks about "shocking and gelling up (chilled joint)." The author is advocating always warming up the glue surfaces prior to gluing.

Jim buddy I'm not taking a flight with you.....

Geeze Colin I have WAY too much respect for you to call you Lucy.....