Glubot in microwave?

Chip Zaflying said:

Thanks for the advice! My Glubot is now clot-free. The hot water did indeed melt the glue, and I was able to dig out the mess with a spoon and the coat hanger hook. Goes to show that the easiest method of accomplishing a task is usually the best.

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you can recover your glue brushes the same way too...
time to think about those TB'd glue joints exposed to prolonged sunlight...
oh my.. my patio furniture joints came apart...

Note:[/I

TB will plasticize w/ heat...
if TB dries on your brush just run the brush under hot tap water.. the dried glue will wash right out...

years and years ago I built a loooooong coffee table using TB.. (TB is relabeled Franklin)
I had to go back and remake the top because the original butt joints separated/crept - twice...
turned out the table sat in the sun all day.. the sun heated up the top, the glue plasticized and the butt joints crept...

the validation to this was to make a couple of butt jointed panels... one w/ splines and one w/o...
put them in a closed up truck that sat in the sun...
the splined panel joints opened/separated/crept...
w/o splines; the TB panel fell completely apart....

since this was a recall for the table... that was money out of pocket..
that table was last time I made a no spline PVA butt jointed panel...
and that was the end of the recalls for like issues...

Cherryville Chuck said:

Your comments and some articles I've read have me rethinking what is the best furniture glue. You know all those museum pieces that are hundreds of years old and still doing just fine? They were all glued together with hide glue.

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give WeldBond a shot... it's a CPVAE adhesive not glue but can be used as glue...
It's done right by me...

WeldBond can have a 2~3x's longer open time than TB w/ a bit of practice..
doesn't plasticize w/ heat like TB does...
it IS waterproof...
but if it dries on your applicator brush, the brush is done for...
cleans up like TB...
and it does more than just wood...

.

Stick486 said:

something to remember...
hide glue ISN'T water resistant...

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And yet all those museum pieces are still just fine. Which in my opinion shows just how unimportant glue's water resistance in interior furniture is despite TB3's ads. One of the articles I posted on it a little while back listed it's solubility in water as one of it's assets because if a piece of furniture lasts long enough it will eventually need to be repaired and being able to get it apart without destroying it is essential to being able to fix it. Plus new hide glue sticks to old hide glue with no loss in strength. That isn't true about any modern glue except maybe, and I stress the maybe part, epoxy to epoxy. There are some other assets it has too such as the fact that as it dries it shrinks which helps pull the joint together. It's adhesive power is also superior as it even sticks to glass. In fact it sticks so well that as it dries and shrinks it causes flakes of glass to pop off from the stress. What other glue can do that?

Stick486 said:

give WeldBond a shot... it's a CPVAE adhesive not glue but can be used as glue...
It's done right by me...

WeldBond can have a 2~3x's longer open time than TB w/ a bit of practice..
doesn't plasticize w/ heat like TB does...
it IS waterproof...
but if it dries on your applicator brush, the brush is done for...
cleans up like TB...
and it does more than just wood...

.

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I have used Weldbond and I consider it superior to any of the TBs. I've probably tried more glues than most people have. I'm currently using a product called Evertite from Franklin which is white and dries clear so may be the same basic formula as Weldbond. It was on sale for $15 a gallon when I bought it. My must have glues are Franklin's Melamine Glue, Lee Valley's Fish Glue (a type of hide glue), a small bottle of any of the polyurethane glues for real total water resistance, a really small bottle of CA glue for a super fast set when needed, and some hot melt for tacking stuff together temporarily. I do have a bottle of TB3 I got for doing cutting boards as it is cheaper and easier to use than the poly glue but when it's gone I probably won't get more. I also try to keep some type of epoxy around for occasions when I need high strength and some gap filling capability.

Cherryville Chuck said:

And yet all those museum pieces are still just fine. Which in my opinion shows just how unimportant glue's water resistance in interior furniture is despite TB3's ads. One of the articles I posted on it a little while back listed it's solubility in water as one of it's assets because if a piece of furniture lasts long enough it will eventually need to be repaired and being able to get it apart without destroying it is essential to being able to fix it. Plus new hide glue sticks to old hide glue with no loss in strength. That isn't true about any modern glue except maybe, and I stress the maybe part, epoxy to epoxy. There are some other assets it has too such as the fact that as it dries it shrinks which helps pull the joint together. It's adhesive power is also superior as it even sticks to glass. In fact it sticks so well that as it dries and shrinks it causes flakes of glass to pop off from the stress. What other glue can do that?

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Liquid Hide Glue – My Favorite Sticky Stuff for (Most) Woodworking
wrote by somebuddy else...

I use liquid hide glue in about 90% of my interior woodworking. I use it on any carpentry work in my house that requires adhesive, on furniture-sized projects in the shop, and on shop projects that are the size of a tiny house (see the tool chest above). Yet when I pull out the bottles of*Old Brown Glue*(OBG)or*Titebond’s liquid hide glue*(TLHG) during classes, students often stare at me as if I’ve started performing the*prologue of*Henry V*(bewildered and not a little dismayed).

I get it; it’s not the wood glue you find easily on the shelves at the big box stores. Though animal-based glues were used almost exclusively for most of material history, in the mid-20th century, polyvinyl acetate (PVA, aka yellow and white glues) became king, and now there are many other alternatives as well (epoxy, polyurethane, cyanoacrylate, to name three), all of which are easy to find. Finding liquid hide glue can take some effort, but it’s worth it. Two independent hardware stores near me carry the Titebond, but for Old Brown, I have to go to a woodworking specialty store or order online.

I think hide glue gets a bad rap. It has a relatively short shelf life. It also takes foresight to soak pearls or flakes in water overnight, and then you need a double boiler of some sort to prepare it. Most often, I hear people say that it stinks. While it’s true that hot hide glue emits an odor, if it’s not rancid, it doesn’t smell much different from beef stock. I can detect little smell from the bottled liquid stuff. And while hot hide glue does indeed take a bit of time and equipment, liquid hide glue can be used straight from the bottle – though you do have to drop the Old Brown Glue bottle in hot water to make it flow (ditto with Titebond if the shop is below 70° or so). It does have a short-ish shelf life, I guess: two years. I go through a couple bottles of liquid hide glue in any large class, so this is a non-issue for me. (And if you store it properly in a cool, dry place it lasts longer.)
So why do I prefer liquid hide glue to PVA and other modern glues? Well, I guess I’m just slow. And I like to offer as much time as possible to my students during glue-ups.
Liquid hide glue has longer open time than PVA – 10 minutes (compared to around 5 for PVA), with a total assembly time of 30 minutes or so (a bit more in a cold shop). With PVA, joints need to be fully seated more quickly, and the clamps need to be be cinched down within 10 to 15 minutes. One advantage of PVA is that the clamps can come off after about 30 minutes (as long as you don’t stress the joints), which is great when you have more glue-ups than you have clamps. With liquid hide glue, I’m loathe to take the clamps off in less than an hour, and I’d rather leave them in place overnight.

Liquid hide glue and hot hide glue are easily reversible with the application of water and steam, so if I have to make a repair, it’s not too much trouble to take a piece apart. Plus, hide glue dissolves into itself; you don’t have to remove all the glue to apply more. With PVA and other glues, you have to get off all the glue before adding more—and you’re awfully likely to remove some wood with it, changing the shape of the workpieces.

Hide glue interferes less with finishes. PVA can leave a white splotch that you won’t find until the finish goes on. You can get away with some clear coats (oil and varnish, shellac, lacquer) over a splotch of hide glue (though it’s still good practice to clean it all off before finishing). Caveat: You can paint on a thinned coat of hide glue under milk paint to create a crackle finish…even if you don’t mean to. (Found that out the hard way.)

Cleanup of hide glue is easy. Just scrub it with hot water, even after it’s been dry for years. It comes out of my clothes in the wash, and out of my hair (which often ends up as an unintended glue brush) in the shower.

And while I don’t have scientific evidence that it’s as strong as PVA, in my experience, it’s plenty strong enough.
For the record, I prefer Old Brown Glue to the Titebond liquid hide glue; it has fewer ingredients, and Patrick Edward makes it in a spare bathroom (what can I say – I find that charming). As we determined in tests years ago at my former magazine, the OBG reverses more cleanly and quickly than the Titebond, and it tacks in a “rub joint” application (the Titebond doesn’t). Traditional hot hide glue works best for rub joints, especially when you need it to grab quickly, as in veneer work or installing glue blocks. But I don’t usually have to reverse joints and I’ll heat up the hot stuff for rub joints, and I don’t like driving the 20 miles to the woodworking specialty shop (a trip that involves battling trucks on I-75 and mall traffic).


NOTE:
I did eschew hide glue in favor of Weldbond on a bathroom cabinet I recently finished. As I mentioned, heat and water reverse hide glue, and I like hot showers.

Stick486 said:

something to consider w/ what has been said about TB also...

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If your bathroom stays hot and moist long enough to soften hide glue enough to cause joints to come apart then you'll wind up with way worse problems than that. I know that because I had to replace all the drywall in the bathroom of my rental house because the moron renter would take hot showers and then close the door when he went out and not turn the fan on. Plus as Herb said there are different grades. If I remember correctly the darker grades require more heat but are stronger and set faster.

This is true of hot melt too. The darker amber the stick the higher the temperature it takes to melt it and the quicker it cools and sets. I use a dark amber stick sold by Bohning to stick the steel points and broadheads on my wooden arrows. I clean the insides with acetone first and groove them with threading taps to give the glue something to bond to and they never come off on their on.

Herb Stoops said:

There were different grades of Hide Glue. That maybe the reason for some failures. the expensive furniture probably got the more expensive higher grade glue is my guess.
I used some fish glue one time , and it turned rancid in the container after sitting awhile. Sure stunk up my shop.
If anyone is interested here is a fine article on fish and hide glue,very informative:
https://journeymansjournel.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/all-about-fish-glue-and-hide-glue/

Herb

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The LV fish glue will last for years with cool to average shop temperatures. If it thickens just add water. I never use it for anything structural but there are a number of jobs it excels at. If you have a grain split for example and you need to glue it back down then fish glue is your ticket. Once it dries you can take a damp rag and wipe off the residue and it won't show a blotch like it would if you used some other type glue. The finish over the wood is enough protection to make sure it stays stuck down. If you are covering a dowel hole with a tapered plug or a button plug then glue it with fish glue. If you need to remove it later you can clean up the residue with water and it's easy to put the button or another plug back in. If you want to stick a paper template to something use fish glue. When you're ready to remove it just spritz the paper with water and wait a couple of minutes. Peel the paper off and wipe up the residue with a damp cloth. I have one of those Porter Cable detail sanders with all the various shaped tips for it. I had trouble getting self adhesive sand paper to stick to them. A coat of fish glue and let it dry and the paper stuck much better. Touching it up with more glue later is no issue because it stays soluble forever. I could go on but you get the idea.