Loading…

Remembering the smell of hot hide glue in my dad's workshop | Musical Instrument Repairers - Babble Community

Remembering the smell of hot hide glue in my dad's workshop

When I first started apprenticing, we always mixed hide glue on a hot plate for violin neck resets. Now with modern adhesives, the process is faster, but I miss the ritual and the certainty it gave me. Do any of you still use traditional methods, or has efficiency taken over completely?

4 comments

4 Comments

karen7308mo ago

I get the appeal of tradition... but in my shop, we switched to modern adhesives years ago. They're just as certain once you learn their quirks, and honestly, the time saved lets us focus on other details.

anthony1296mo ago

Honestly though... is the extra time with hide glue really that big of a deal? Feels like we're talking minutes on a project that takes hours anyway. That "saved" time probably just gets spent staring at the piece wondering what to do next. The old ways worked fine for centuries without all these chemical wipes and special steps.

claire_gibson8mo ago

Absolutely! That time saving is no joke, @karen730. I found the real trick with the modern stuff is surface prep - sanding just a hair more than you think you need to and wiping everything down with acetone first changed the game for me. It turned that "quirk" into pure reliability on tricky joints. That peace of mind is what finally let me stop double checking every glued seam and move faster.

nancy_bennett8mo ago

Okay, full confession time: my first bottle of that modern glue ended up more on my clothes than the wood. But you're right, once you get past the initial mess, the speed is unbelievable. It's like Claire said, that extra sanding and acetone wipe aren't just suggestions, they're the difference between a wobbly joint and something that'll outlive us all. I clung to hide glue for years out of sheer stubbornness, but the time I save now lets me fuss over the fun parts, like hand-cutting dovetails. There's a pride in the old ways, but sometimes efficiency isn't the enemy of craftsmanship. Just don't ask me about the time I used the accelerator spray and fused a clamp to the piece, that's a story for another day.