Official Luthiers Forum!

As I recall, David was introduced to FG at the Romanillos Course. I do not know if that has a bearing on his preference. Some people just don't like to fiddle with heating glue all day in the shop.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

After reading this I'm wondering what the advantages of FG are. I use Titebond for almost every procedure on a guitar. I have started experimenting with Gorilla glue and I think I like that stuff for some joints.

What does FG have over TB? TB doesn't need to be clamped all day and it is a cinch to clean up. Sounds like FG is a bit of a hassle so what say ye who use FG what does it have to offer?

It's organic rather than inorganic (that's just a hippie preference ) doesn't cold creep and requires heat AND mositure to release (so won't let go in a hot car unless it's under water ), will stick to itself (unlike Titebond) and has a longer shelf-life than Titebond and it can suffer low temperatures/freeze and still be good when brought up to normal temperature (unlike Titebond). Hide glue is my first preference but when I need to relax a little fish glue is my next one. The clamping time isn't really that much of an issue as there's plenty of other stuff to be getting on with - at least in my workshop

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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

Titebond works, of course. Countless guitars attest to this.

Some think that fish glue or HHG joints dry harder and creep less under long term stress - this would probably be seen as the main advantage. How real a concern is it? Is it just a question of traditional vs. modern materials? I certainly don't know, or have enough experience that I could form an opinion I could defend. Any decent glue will form a joint that will break the adjacent wood before it fails at the glue line in destructive testing. Beyond that, I haven't seen anyone doing systematic creep tests, which can be rather elaborate to do.

Fish glue I see as being for us wimps who don't want to fight the open time issues of HHG, or deal with the glue pot. (I know, I know, get your technique down buddy and get with the program here.) I've gotten very attached to it myself and use it for almost everything on the guitar as well as general use in the shop. I'm never in the shop for more than an hour or two at a time, so leaving things clamped overnight rather than an hour is rarely an issue to me. If I were in the shop all day, I would probably go back to Titebond for a lot of my general stuff.

I don't like Gorilla glue much. I always fear that it's tendency to swell is actually pushing joints apart rather than drawing them together during evaporative curing, like most of the glues we use. A recent article in FWW rated Gorilla glue behind almost everything, although these studies usually have minimal scientific credibility because of small sample size and are thus mainly anecdotal.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

The comment on Gorilla, may have been relative to the Gorilla White Wood Glue, not the PU glue that swells and foams. However, lots of folks use the PU glues, and just don't add much moisture, as there is always moisture in the wood to accommodate the curing of the glue, and it does not foam as much.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Aside from all the questions concerning the relative properties of these glues once dry, what fish glue provides me is longer working time during various procedures.
I also work shorter stretches in the shop and would find the heating and reheating of hide glue to be inconvenient in the extreme.
The longer working time of FG isn't much of an advantage in certan operations such as attaching dentellones or braces and such, but when one is installing bindings or gluing a back this extra tme can make the dfference between a relaxed enjoyable process and a rushed nail biter.
There are also a few operations which I perform where this longer working time becomes essential. I often make veneer sandwiches to create custom marquetry purflings. Believe me, if you are gluing 25 or 30 layers of veneer together all at once with Titebond the frst layers will be a snotty mess long before you get to the end and are able to clamp the bundle. Fish glue works exceedingly well for this and responds nicely to heat and moisture when it comes time to pre-bend these prior to installation.
i don't find clean up to be much of a problem in that I keep a damp cloth around to keep my fingers clean and one learns the right amount of this to apply to minimize squeeze out. Also a few moments after gluing it's easy to remove this squeeze out by sliding a chisel blade gently along the joint or lightly scraping with it.
This might sound wierd but I also really like the feel of this stuff as I apply it (by finger) to parts. It wets the surface very easily and with a thin layer (again minimizing squeeze out) parts swim less than Titebond in many circumstances.

David, your point about gluing veneers is what I needed to hear. I had an awful tome doing my first bar glue up with TB. Howard, I'm a bit confused, I thought FG ( a type of hide glue ) pulled joints together, and TB, using a catalytic process, did not shrink very much. What was different between HHG and FG was the open time. Can u help clear this up in my mind?
Mike

Are you confusing Titebond with epoxy?

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

I know exactly what you mean, David. It seems to really coat the surface, rather than just pooling on it, and then you can squeegy it down to whatever thickness you want with your finger. It's sort of surface-adhering rather than just surface wetting. Yeah, maybe weird, but I know what you mean.

I really like the stuff. Almost as much as I like shellac as a finish.

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

This is exactly why I don't post very often, my ability to accurately post what I'm trying to say is
obviously limited. Guess there is a dis-connect between what's left of the brain and the typing finger...

Creep is a poor choice of words and did not convey what I was trying to say about fish glue. Creep
is, by definition, the permanent distortion of materials under a compressive force that is less than it's compression strength. Not what I was trying to say. I just meant that with HHG, I notice less movement of two surfaces upon
clamping than I notice with fish glue. I was mistakenly referring to that movement as creep. It is, of course,
sliding of a joint under clamping forces. I do find that with fish glue I have to be careful if the joint is one that
can move under pressure, some joints don't and it's not an issue. It would probably be more accurate to call
that the plasticity of the glue, allowing for that slippage of woods in certain joints. I would think the HHG has
less plasticity than fish glue but I can't say that with certainty. It may just be that it's rather quick drop in
temperature causes it to gel more quickly, resulting in an initially tighter joint.

One other issue that I think we all have to consider is the differences in the joints that we deal with in building a guitar or other stringed instruments. Some joints are always in dynamic tension, like necks and bridges. It seems to me that it makes sense that the adhesive chosen for those joints might be different or at least have different characteristics than
those for joints that really are not "loaded" or in tension- kerfing, braces etc. Maybe I'm completely wrong on this but
to me it makes sense to at least consider that.

OK, I've created enough confusion. Howard, I hope that makes sense in regard to my incorrect use of creep in regard
to fish glue.

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Bruce Herrmann
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."