Replies

1. 
   SgianDubh | Aug 23, 2002 06:56am | #1

   In water, simmer a few of your old handkerchiefs that you've had in your pocket for a week or two whilst working on your unextracted saw and planing machines, and without a dust mask until it's rendered down nicely. A wee hack up from your dust choked lungs into the pot helps a bo'hair too. The glutinous mess is even better if you smoke 40 or more cigarettes a day, ha, ha.  Slainte, RJ.

   RJFurniture
2. 
   UncleDunc | Aug 23, 2002 07:48am | #2

   You can make glue from the skin and connective tissue of almost any animal. Some of the ones I've heard of using are horses, cattle, rabbits, and fish. I don't think leather will work. I think it has to be raw skin.

   Some starting materials you might find at the grocery store are soup bones, calves' feet and pigs' feet. Remove as much muscle tissue and blood as you can. Use about a quart of water for each pound of whatever you decide to use. Simmer for about two hours and any muscle that you couldn't get to before should now be tender enough to scrape off.

   Simmer overnight. Strain out and discard the solids. Chill the liquid until the fat rises to the top and solidifies. Remove and discard the fat. Be careful to get all of it. Reheat the remainder and strain it through a cloth filter, muslin or flour sacking or a non terry cloth dish towel, etc. You can also clarify it, following the directions for clarifying meat stock in any comprehensive cookbook. Then reduce it over low heat until it reaches the viscosity you want.

   Now when I've done this, I've always been aiming for stock rather than glue, so I didn't remove the meat, and I never tested it as glue, but from my experience cleaning up the pots and utensils, I guarantee it's sticky. I don't know how strong it would be, and it might develop a bad smell in a high humidity environment, but it really and truly will be glue.

1. 
   SgianDubh | Aug 23, 2002 08:28am | #3

   Sounds like hide glue to me Uncle Dunc. I buy that cheaply and (almost) or completely ready to go. Isn't there a recipe that uses the grain of various sorts of corn? And I know that there's one that includes using milk rennit, and another that involves fish parts. Personally, I prefer buying all these seemingly exotic glues to use where someone else has done the dirty work. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture

1. 
   BG | Aug 23, 2002 01:26pm | #4

   Sgian,

   I'm surprised and shocked you buy your glues.  It seems to me you would have plenty of the raw materials available to you after a rugby game...someone on the team musta had fish for lunch....lol

   Did you ever get a chance to meet one of Boston's stars..Dr. Tom Durant?

1. 
   SgianDubh | Aug 23, 2002 07:22pm | #9

   Fish for lunch, BG? I hope not. There never seemed to be the time to pick up all the bits of blood and gore after a game to make glue. Anyway, it's always time for a shower, some beer, and convivial company after a mega brawl, er-- I mean a fair but hard game of rugby. Never met the Doc you mentioned. Most of my rugby was played in the UK, and latterly in and near TX.. I'm retired now-- age has caught up, my knees are shot, and I have about as much useful wind as a small paper bag. But once in a while we old farts like to get together, pretend to play a bit of rugby, and over a beer or five after the slo-mo hippo's ballet just enacted recall how good we think we used to be, ha, ha. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture

3. 
   BenM | Aug 23, 2002 02:17pm | #5

   The big question is why?

   FWW did have an article by Sandor Nagy... on how Toshio Odate makes glue from rice.

   But the big question still is why?

1. 
   ChasStanford | Aug 23, 2002 03:08pm | #6

   He lunches on the leftover rice - literally.

4. 
   PlaneWood | Aug 23, 2002 05:09pm | #7

   Have you ever tried to scrape Post Tosties out of a bowl after it's set for a day or so? 

   PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy
   PlaneWood

5. 
   SawdustSteve | Aug 23, 2002 05:52pm | #8

   OK, you guys win the gold-plated sledgehammer award... I find this thread even funnier than the jokes posted in the 'cafe', even though I added onr to that list.   Thanks for the great laughs.

   SawdustSteve

1. 
   UncleDunc | Aug 23, 2002 09:15pm | #10

   That's OK, Steve. You keep laughing. I say it makes a lot of sense to think about how to make things you would normally buy, even if you never do it. It's a habit of mind that can save you a lot of time and frustration when things go wrong. When the revolution comes and you can't buy glue, theman will still be building furniture.

1. 
   user-392882 | Aug 24, 2002 12:07am | #11

   Sgian, I have a question for you about rugby.  I happened to be watching a rugby game not long ago, and I was wondering what is that thing the players do once in a while where the two teams join together in a kind of circle and bounce the ball around inside?  A "scrimp" or "scump" or something like that?   Looks mighty mighty scary to me.

   Edited 8/23/2002 5:07:43 PM ET by Matt Schenker

1. 
   BG | Aug 24, 2002 12:45am | #12

   It's called a 'Scrum'. They do that when someone gets a bright idea of where to go drinking after the game....they kick it around awhile till someone remembers there playing and makes a break for it.  lol

   I don't play the game...too busy getting ready for the revolution...getting all my glue-ups done now...lol    I appologize to everyone I have offended

2. 
   SgianDubh | Aug 24, 2002 03:08am | #13

   Yes, Matt, as BG says, it's a scrum. Kind of like the line of scrimmage in a game of American football. I recall a few years ago when a team from a rugby club in the south of England came up to Edinburgh to play against us prior to a bunch of us heading to Murrayfield Stadium for the big Calcutta Cup game. That's a big one during the 6 Nation's championship where the top level English and Scots internationalists try to knock big lumps out of each other all for the sake of a bit of silverware, and ,er, national pride. Anyway, in our bounce game between the English hack club guys and our hack Boroughmuir players held the morning before the 'big game' in the afternoon, we went down for our first set scrum. The smell was at least, well, shall we say, a bit fruity. What with last nights alcoholic excesses, extra helpings of curry, pre game port and and cheese, buttock clenchingly sloppy bowels were very much in evidence, and the wind from both ends of each player was fairly free flowing. One of the English guys must have been a tea-totaller or something else bizarre for a rugby player, and remarked, "Gawd, this f-ing scrum stinks of booze. Who's been drinking?"  Fifteen of the (sixteen) other scrum members replied in something remarkably like unison, "We have, ya big gurls blouse. Shut it and shove. Let's get this over with before one of us spews our ring on ya."

   Anyone got an answer for the home made glue thing? Slainte, RJ.

   RJFurniture

   Edited 8/23/2002 8:28:39 PM ET by Sgian Dubh

1. 
   WilliamHF | Aug 24, 2002 03:30am | #14

   I just don't know about you, Sgian,

   I've previously always looked to the Scots and English, not so much to the Welsh,  as the men who set the highest standards of comportment, fine language, and style of living----to be looked up to as exemplary examples of what a gentleman should aspire to be.

   But these Rugby players seem to be a slight departure from the mold.

   Surely the "Scrum"  you cited is a one-in-a-million occurence in that gentlemanly sport,  no?

   William

   Florida

   I make something, sometimes twice, each year.

2. 
   SgianDubh | Aug 24, 2002 03:55am | #15

   "highest standards of comportment, fine language, and style of living----to be looked up to as exemplary examples of what a gentleman should aspire to be."

   We are most gentlemanly William. How could you possibly doubt me? I tell the lies, the invented stories, the fictions and the distortions with a straighter face than a con artist who's got more angles than the average Floridian McMansion roof job. Slainte, RJ.

   RJFurniture

   Edited 8/23/2002 8:59:06 PM ET by Sgian Dubh

6. 
   IanDG | Aug 24, 2002 08:10am | #16

   Here is a site that tells you how to make casein glue from cow's milk.
   You can make a wallpaper paste from flour but I wouldn't have thought it could be used for anything stronger.

   Sgian, if rugby is so gentlemanly, why the bumper sticker "Give blood -- play Rugby"??

1. 
   SgianDubh | Aug 24, 2002 08:42am | #17

   If you have ask, you just don't know, Ian--- gawd-- A Brit with Oz experience an' all, and Montana connections too. Some people just never get it, ha, ha. Slainte, RJ.RJFurniture

1. 
   JCalvetti | Aug 25, 2002 09:23am | #18

   I wonder if cooking gelatin could be used for glue?  Perhaps not for joints but for sizing?

    

1. 
   UncleDunc | Aug 25, 2002 11:17am | #19

   As nearly as I can discover, gelatin and hide glue are different grades of the same thing. I suspect glue is both cheaper and stronger, so I haven't felt a powerful urge to experiment with gelatin. :) If you try it, please share the results.

1. 
   WilliamHF | Aug 25, 2002 08:48pm | #20

   Try/ Buy a box of  Knox unflavored gelatine next time you're out shopping (it's next to the Jello), and prepare a small batch to experiment with. Put three spoonfuls of cool water in a small jar, and add one spoonful of the gelatine. Sprinkle the granules on the surface of the water while swirling the jar around to prevent clumps from forming. Put on the lid to prevent evaporation, and wait until the individual little swollen granules are no longer visible, and the stuff appears to be homogeneous. Now loosen the lid, place the jar in a water bath, and bring the temperature up to 140 degrees F (60 degrees C). More than 145 degrees F weakens the glue. Refrigerate the unused glue, and discard after two or three reheatings. When working with glue of this consistency, you must always prime any surfaces that are going to be clamped so that you don't get a starved joint. To prime (some say, "Size") , brush a thin even coating on both surfaces, and allow the glue to completely dry. You may wish to apply a little extra to any endgrain of your project. Then apply fresh hot glue to both surfaces, and assemble while the glue is still fluid.  The dried glue is very hygroscopic, so think of that before exposing the finishe dpiece to high humidity conditions.

   Plane or sand a couple of scraps so they have good flat surfaces and try your Knox gelatine Hot Hide Glue out on them. Let them set up overnight and see how easy/hard it is to pull them apart.

   Most luthiers seem to feel that Knox gelatin hide glue is significantly weaker than standard hide glue. For small projects not bearing great loads, it will work fine. As an example, when a violin top is glued to the ribs and linings of a violin, the maker doesn't want the bond to be terribly strong. Sooner or later the top will have to come off and a little hot water judiciously applied to the seam, or better yet, a little jet of steam, will disassemble the joint very readily. That's one of the beauties of hot hide glue.

   William

   I make something, sometimes twice, each year.