What glue

ken lutes

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I have a job to do for a friend. He has an old cherry bed that belonged to his grandmother. Not sure exactly how old it is. All the glue joints have failed and needs to be took apart and re glued. What glue do you recommend for this? My concern is the old glue is still in the joints and not sure that regular wood glue would hold under theses conditions? Any other suggestions or advice would be appreciated.
 
I have a job to do for a friend. He has an old cherry bed that belonged to his grandmother. Not sure exactly how old it is. All the glue joints have failed and needs to be took apart and re glued. What glue do you recommend for this? My concern is the old glue is still in the joints and not sure that regular wood glue would hold under theses conditions? Any other suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Since it's probably well over 50 years old, the glue joints are probably done with hide glue.

One of the beauties of hide glue is that new hide glue will bond to/with old hide glue.

I'd disassemble the joints, and remove as much of the old glue residue as you can - it'll be pretty much crystallized, and brittle, so it's fairly easy to remove. Don't worry about getting it all, though. Then, mix up a new batch of hot glue, or use Titebond of OBG liquid hide glue and reassemble. Clamp at least overnight, and you're done.
 
Fifty years ago was only 1960. Alternative glues to hide glue have been available since about 1900 (casein was developed about then, and urea formaldehyde sometime before 1940).

If the furniture was factory made after about 1910, it's unlikely you have hide glue. You can test it by heating the residue and see if it softens. If not, your best avenue is to remove as much of the glue residue as possible and use a modern glue.

Mike

[Urea formaldehyde glue will deteriorate over time and leave a surface that looks a lot like old hide glue.]
 
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For the most part, new glue does not stick to old glue. Do not fail to remove all of the old glue. Regluing failures occur when one assumes hide glue only to find that it is not. Second corollary: Unlike glues do not stick together. In other words, yellow glue does not stick to hide glue.

Save yourself some embarrassment. Disassemble everything. Remove all the old glue and reglue with a modern, easily available, common wood glue. You will be happy because you only had to do the job once. You'll be happy because you did a good job. Your friend will be happy because his friend (you) did a good job.

FWIW: Beds and chairs are the most abused pieces of furniture. They take lots of jolts in ordinary use. Use the appropriate cautions in building them and rebuilding them.
 
Scraping and sanding is the way to go. Likely you will get loose joints. What causes the joints to fail is wood shrinkage and compressed wood fibers due to usage.

The fix can be multiple things. Make the holes smaller with veneers pieces or hand plan shavings is one way. Plug the hole and redrill, but that is pretty drastic. One of my favorites is to saw a thin kerf in the tenon. Then make a thin wedge and start it in the kerf. Apply glue and hammer or squeeze teh tenon home. The wedge spreads the ends of the tenon and locks the tenon into the hole. It is called a fox tail M&T. There are metal inserts sold for chair repairs. Same principle as the fox tail.

Another way, if the style will permit it, is to drill a perpendicular hole to the mortise and a matching hole in the tenon. That hole needs to be slightly offset. drive in a dowel to drawn the tenon tight and lock the joint. That one is called a drift pin. You can use a contrasting dowel and create a design feature. If the style will not permit that, counter bore a larger hole a fraction deep, cut a face grain plug and glue in over the end of the locking dowel matching the grain as well as possible.

There are probably more tricks to repair mortise and tenon joints, but this ought to get you started.
 
I vote for Carol's recipe... As said, in the 60s White glue was all the craze and very popular in industry as well as home shops (yellow glue was just making the scene as it was more expensive) Old slow to modernize WWers were still using Hide glue but it is today's Retro WWers that think Hide is the panacia of adhesives.
 
Fifty years ago was only 1960. Alternative glues to hide glue have been available since about 1900 (casein was developed about then, and urea formaldehyde sometime before 1940).

If the furniture was factory made after about 1910, it's unlikely you have hide glue. You can test it by heating the residue and see if it softens. If not, your best avenue is to remove as much of the glue residue as possible and use a modern glue.

Mike

[Urea formaldehyde glue will deteriorate over time and leave a surface that looks a lot like old hide glue.]

Actually (to be informative, not argumentative) casein, or milk glues, have been around near on forever. If you tour places like Mt. Vernon or other restored historical sites, they will often show furniture, plates and other items made with or repaired with casein. I know lot of things at Mt. Vernon are made and/or repaired with casein.
 
Alot of good info, remove the old glue, ck the joint if it appears loose like most are due to srinkage, ware, etc you may consider a poly glue since it expands a little I have been pretty sucessful with that does nicly filling the gaps. If you do do the ply glue it will expand out of the joint so make sure you cover the sourounding wood with blue tape. If it fits tight and you get it to wood I would vote for tightbond III since it is a little darker than tightbond II.
 
The poly glues do expand, but the expanded material is foam with virtually no compressive strength. It'll seem great right out of the clamps, but with a bit if use, the joints will fail again, and be even harder to repair because the joint's all filled with foamy glue. I would stay away from poly glues for furniture repairs on anything higher quality than Ikea stuff. ;)

If I need to fill gaps, I prefer to use epoxy. If the joints are tight, I'll use Titebond or plastic resin. I still need to give hide glue a try. There are a lot of old musical instruments that are still holding together just fine with hide glue after decades (or centuries) of use. The modern glues may be more convenient, but hide glue offers a longer open time, and it's still stronger than the wood when it's cured.
 
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