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I've been using fish glue a lot on the last couple of guitars - first time. It does seem to have all it's advertised advantages - quick tack but long open time. Stuff slides around less during clamping, and you tend to get less drips and runs than with titebond. I like it a bunch.

After putting a back on a flamenco guitar last week, I took all the clamps off, pulled out the measuring tools, and had a D'OH !! moment The neck was set totally wrong!    I figured out what had happened - let's not go there - but at any rate the back had to come off.

I thought this stuff would come apart pretty easily, but it actually seems to be a bear. I have disassembled one side to top joint done with titebond before, and that came apart much more easily than the fish glue joint. I was giving the joint a pretty good water spritz and going at it with a heat gun and palette knives, and it really put up a fight.

Is there an easier way to do this? Get it wet and let the moisture work for a longer time?

Jim

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

Jim,

I've had to take apart one joint that I glued up with fish glue. This was a neck block where the back and top were not yet joined to the sides and I was able to clamp my heat blanket down on the bench between 2 steel slats and put the block on top. I did found that it needed a fair bit of heat before the glue started to let go. I also used a thin pallette knife that I kept dipping in the hot water of my glue pot and then gently working it in. Once the water was introduced this way it came apart fine.

Nice to hear that it takes a lot of effort to take apart as some reports on fish glue imply it would fly apart when you lightly mist it and just look at it!

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

[QUOTE=Dave White] Jim,

Nice to hear that it takes a lot of effort to take apart as some reports on fish glue imply it would fly apart when you lightly mist it and just look at it![/QUOTE]

No, no worries there. It definitely had a degree of difficulty one better than titebond.

Thanks for the tip. I hope I never need it!   

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

There's an interesting debate going on over at MIMF as to the merits of this glue. People always seem to blame the glue when they have problems...of course,operator error is the last thing to look at. In my case, it's always the first thing I suspect...and I'm usually right.

Like both of you, I like the stuff and plan to use it on my next top and back. Knowing now how difficult it is to dissemble, I'll make doubly sure that the operator is error free before executing the joint.

Thanks for the info.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

Jim, one of the good things about fish glue is it has a high temperature before failure. Thus, adding heat won't do much at all. You need to get water into the joint. As Dave said, a pallette knife constantly dipped in water is likely your best tool. Don't rush anything. And make sure the area you have just worked on doesn't re-adhear to itself. Another advantage to fish glue is that once it is disolved, it resets with equal amount of strength.

I was googling fish glue a bit recently, and found some interesting information. There are many types of fish glue. Fish glue made from cod, which is what most of the stuff you can buy today is, is a relative new invention (1870's). Isinglass, or fish glue made from the bladders of fresh water fish, was the traditional glue. Isinglass form sturgeon bladders were used by the Mongols as a glue for their fearsome composite bows.

Naturally, the bow has to be glued together. The preferred and traditional substance used for the impregnation of both leather as well as their bows is fish glue. As a matter of fact, fish glue has been proven through millennia to be highly capable of resisting moisture

The Mongolian bow (scroll down a bit)

Isinglass is still regarded as a superior glue (and the price is certainly higher!); the "Genuine Isinglass Glue" that Dick GMBH carries is in dry form and is "...For difficult repairs requiring highest bond strengths." Has anyone here tried isinglass, and if so, have you tested it for moisture resistance? How does it compare to ordinary (cod) fish glue?

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

[QUOTE=JJ Donohue]There's an interesting debate going on over at MIMF as to the merits of this glue. People always seem to blame the glue when they have problems...of course,operator error is the last thing to look at. In my case, it's always the first thing I suspect...and I'm usually right.



Like both of you, I like the stuff and plan to use it on my next top and back. Knowing now how difficult it is to dissemble, I'll make doubly sure that the operator is error free before executing the joint.



Thanks for the info.[/QUOTE]

I like the term "Operator Head-Space"(I learned it setting up a 50 cal. machine-gun in the Army).  Like you, I consider it to be a primary source of most types of failures.  It is too easy to blame the environment or the product, and prep. is an operator responsibility.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I'm using fish glue for the first time on the set of guitars I'm building now. I like it. It is a very hard glue when dry, easy to use and clean. I have used it for every joint except inlays so far.

I was thinking on my next build I would make double sides. I'm thinking about using fish glue for that instead of epoxy. It seems that there is less water content and there will be much less warping of the sides than using LMI white or Titebond. Does anyone have any thoughts about that?

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"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." G. K. Chesterton.

It is an article of faith at MIMF that while hide glue joint failures are always the result of user error, joint failures using other glues are always the result of bad glue.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

Jim;
you might try adding a bit of white vinegar to the water spritz!!!
The acedic acid helps break done most glues.-except epoxy & super.

Mike

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Mike Collins

Thanks for the answers to the original question - plenty of ideas to get me out of trouble the next time (that I hope never comes).

Do we know what variety of fish glue the Lee Valley stuff is? That's what I'm using. I really do like it so far.

Jim

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Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I'm pretty sure the Lee Valley fish glue is made by Norland.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

I have some Lsinglass Glue got it from www.Dick.biz.
Their data sheet states that it comes from the "drying the inner membrane of the air bladder of a Beluga Sturgeon...strongest of all animal glues". They state that Russian restorers use dark wildflower honey as a softening agent. I assume they mean as an additive not a desolving solution. I am going to use it on a troublesome bridge on an old Martin that just doesn't want to stay put. I am a little leary, as Richard Brune' told me this stuff is almost impossible to remove. Did anyone find something that dissolves this stuff?

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

[QUOTE=jtkirby] Thanks for the answers to the original question - plenty of ideas to get me out of trouble the next time (that I hope never comes).

Do we know what variety of fish glue the Lee Valley stuff is? That's what I'm using. I really do like it so far.

Jim

[/QUOTE]

Here is an excerpt from from the product description on the Lee Valley web site:

Contents
About 45% solids in water: extract from cod fish skins, non-flammable natural protein. Contains an odorant and a bactericide.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

i think it would be a prudent idea to test it on scrap first to establish how it will release before using it on a clients quality instrument.

Absolutely CM...but I don't expect it to release too easily. That's why I was asking if anyone had a releasing agent/formula for this stuff. The Lsinglass stuff is supposed to be realy tough, but has been around a long time...someone probably knows everything there is to know about it.

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"