Official Luthiers Forum!

Link, while your methods are all fine, I'm afraid they're very much unnecessary and only serve to keep others from trying to improve their joinery chops, or from trying HHG altogether.

I have never sized a joint, not even the "V" joint on necks, which have a lot of end grain. I never apply glue to both surfaces; the way I see it, once we mate the two surfaces, the glue will introduce itself to the other surface just fine.

I never have glue joint failures.

As for using distilled water, I never thought of that, as I have nice, soft, almost completely mineral-free water from my well, but for city dwellers with nasty city water, distilled water would be a good idea.

100% correct to keep the bottle tip clean! Especially with Titebond; we see a lot of shop photos where the bottle is visible in the background, and some of them look like the tip's never been cleaned!

I rarely use a brush to spread my glue; a bead of glue retains its heat longer than a thin layer that has been spread, and one you get used to what size of bead you need for most tasks, you even minimize squeeze out. In my latest video here, you see me using the bottle's tip to spread the glue a bit on the end blocks, but otherwise, it was just a bead all the way around. I ended up with perfect squeeze out all the way around. As always.

Yes, i agree that everyone should be this careful with their joinery, even if using Titebond, but fact is that Titebond type glues are forgiving of technique, and thus the user, despite his/her best intentions, never takes it to the next level. HHG -forces- the user to take it(joinery) to the next level.

This thread has been great! Thanks for all the info guys!