What is hide glue

The bond is so strong that the wood breaks before the glue bond. When these glues are applied to the wood, they are absorbed into the wood fibers and dry after a clamp time to give a solid bond that is hard to break.

Wood glues come in different types and can be used for wooden items used indoors and outdoors. Certain types of wood glues can resist heat and rain, making them suitable for outdoor furniture.

This is contrary to hide glues that are not resistant to heat and water. They are widely used commercially and have a constant demand from woodworkers, DIYers, and hobbyists.

Meanwhile, hide glues are not available commercially. You can buy bottled hide glues that are more widely available. However, if you are looking for hot hide glues, you will have to make an effort to prepare them yourself. Preparation is not an easy task, and you will need constant heating and storage to use your hot hide glues.

The assembly time varies with various wood glues. However, many types of wood glue provide a good assembly time for woodworkers to set their wooden pieces in the right places for the glue to bond together perfectly. This is suitable for woodwork that has many details and pieces have to be put together carefully to bond. Hide glues have a very short working time. This makes them unsuitable for work that needs time to assemble all the wooden items for sealing them.

If you expect moisture to creep in your work, it is better to use water-resistant and waterproof wood glues to guarantee that your glued woodwork will not be compromised because of water. Hide glues are not water-resistant and cannot be relied upon for wood projects that will be exposed to water.

This puts wood glues at an advantage. The wide availability of wood glues and brands competing to give customers the best product at lower prices has meant that wood glues cost less.

Hide glues that are bottled cost less because they are manufactured in large quantities and bottled for use. However, if you want to work with hot hide glues, the cost of manufacturing them, including the time needed to make them is a downside when it comes to cost savings.

Cyanoacrylate CA , also known as Super Glue, breathed new life into adhesives with their super-fast setting times that are clear and waterproof. These glues do not need any clamping because they can clear in seconds.

Since Super Glue can be used at almost all temperatures both indoors and outdoors, they are suitable for certain woodworking projects that can use their advantages. The instant adhesion provided by Super Glue should only be a temporary bond while you replace it later with stronger bonding glue.

However, this strong temporary bonding will let you proceed with your woodworking tasks faster without worrying about drying and clearing times.

The already fast clearing time of CA glues can boost accelerators that will fasten the clearing process. This will help when cyanoacrylates are used on acidic woods, where they cure slowly.

Using an accelerator will speed up the time taken for the glue to cure. By adding certain chemicals to hot hide glue, it will remain liquid at room temperature, and, even cool, still behave as its upscale brother hot hide glue This glue has a history documented to BC, roughly.

Made of rendered-down animal hides fish glue and isinglass glue are similar; bone glue is the same collagen base, although somewhat inferior , hide glue is the first choice for musical instrument makers, antique conservators and traditional woodworkers. For the general woodworker who is not committed to using epoxies and such for specialized purposes, Titebond and the other aliphatic resin glues which are sold under a variety of names pretty much heads the list of modern favorites.

It works every time. The somewhat less convenient hide glue made from animal hides and hooves is still used by purists, craftsmen, and traditionalists. It works every time as well. On the whole they give equivalent results, but with one significant difference. This is most noticeable to repairmen and restorers — those whose work requires them to take glue joints apart, or to deal with failed joints.

The difference is that of destructive vs. What that means is that one can take a hide glue joint apart if one knows how, and if one is willing to be patient without removing of any actual wood. One cannot take a Titebonded joint apart without losing at least a little bit of the original wood: one undoes the joint and then needs to do some sanding or scraping to expose fresh wood.

The point is, traditional hot hide glue can be difficult to work with, and so is avoided by most woodworkers understandably so. Liquid hide glue, specifically the stuff Titebond came out with, works just fine at room temperature, plus it has a long open time. Even though it may not have quite the bonding strength traditinoal hot hide glue has, it still produces a glue joint stronger than the wood itself.

Yes, you can reactivate the glue by applying heat and moisture to the joint. If a mistake were made during a glue up, you can actually back up and fix it.

Another benefit that I love is that it sets up hard so it can be sanded, scraped, and cut easily. Glue squeeze out can be a pain to work with and eliminate from intricate glue ups and inside corners. And some wood glues heat up and become soft or sticky when sanded, making it impossible to sand away completely.

Over at Popular Woodworking , they did some tests comparing the 2 leading liquid hide glues Old Brown and Titebond. Their findings were that they are both great contenders and held their own in various tests of strength, reversibility, and ease of use.

The English Woodworker posted an article as well. He uses Titebond hide glue a lot, and his biggest reason is because the glue makes it easier to slide the joint together.