Fish Glue
By Mike Knudsen
Since the topic of glue has been opened, how about the latest versions of Fish Glue? Allegedly fish glue combines the best features of hot hide glue with the ease of working of cold glues. No need to heat it up, and it gels much more slowly, giving you time to adjust the pieces, unlike hot glues.
Once dried, it is as strong as hide glue but can be split and sanded off like hide glue, without clogging the sanding belt. Thus fish glue is kind to the next rebuilder 20 years hence.
I haven't tried the stuff yet myself, and don't even know where to get it except at high-end woodworking shops that cater to serious wood craftsmen. I heard about it from a player piano rebuilder who sat next to me on the bus when returning from the MBSI trip to Jasper Sanfilippo's mansion/castle/music museem near Chicago this summer. (This return trip proved we had not died and gone to Heaven, though I was fooled for a few hours!).
I asked him about the smell, and he said the cold fish glue, which is open only long enough to be used, stinks up the workroom a lot less than heating up a pot of hide glue! I have fond memories of hide glue having a distinctive but not bad odor, though I don't recall how my wife felt at the time I rebuilt a Duo-Art Weber 20 years ago.
FWIW, I messed up and used white glue on the pneumatics, and perflex pouches, and the whole thing needs re-rebuilding badly. But at least I glued the stack pneu's to the deck with hot glue -- all was done per Larry Givens' landmark book of 30 years ago.
Live and learn -- anyway, the topic of glue is very important!
--Mike Knudsen
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(Message sent Tue 5 Nov 1996, 21:52:57 GMT, from time zone GMT-0600.) |
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