Official Luthiers Forum!

I buy shellac, hide glue and other misc. at a shop that caters painters, restorers etc.

I recently saw they sell fish gelatin.  It's solid and glassy, the label instructions say it should be dissolved in water, and it is used for gilding and in painting.

I wonder if this is actually what fish glue is made of ?  Dissolve it in water and get glue ?  Google was not very helpful so far.

Thanks !

_________________
Build log

That's interesting. There are various types of Fish Glues.  Isenglas is one form that is used in lots of things, including the production of certain types of beer and wine.  It is the purest form of fish glue, and is, as I understand it, very strong.  It is also very clear, and I believe I read somewhere that it can be used as an additive in paints, and can be used as a glaze or in certain types of glazing.  It is definitely used in the restoration of art, books, and documents for archival purposes.  It sounds like you have a gelled form of the glue, but I do not know that.  Try doing a search for Isenglas gelatin.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

It looks exactly like this:



Description:
Sheets of amber clear fish gelatin. Should first be soaked then dissolved in a double boiler. Imported from Italy

_________________
Build log

I know you probably saw this in your search, but Norland Products, makes and sells, bot fish gelatin and High Tack Fish Glue.  Here is their write-up on Fish Gelatin.  It seems it will dissolve at a lower temperature than animal gelatin, which is another form of HHG.  This does not explain whether or not they are interchangeable.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Junk!  I forgot to post the link.  HERE

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I have used it for sizing for applying gold leaf (gilding) on antique furniture and frames. Basically all gelatins can be used as glues, whether they be animal based such as jello or knox's gelatin or plant based such as agar from seaweed.

Like hot hide glue, gelatins are usually liquified but dissolving in water or other liquid and heat. The strength of the glue bond is proportional to the formulation of the collagens in the substance, which for glues is rated in gram strength hence 192 gram hhg or higher or lower depending on the use case for the particular adhesive.

Fish glue has a longer working time than HHG, but it is quite moisture sensitive and should not be used on items that may be exposed to high humidity.   That's reason enough for me not to use it.

Jose Romanillos' use of the product in his class, for gluing braces, dentallones, etc., would give me a comfort level, using it, that I could accept.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I just spent a morning at the shop of Monica Esparza, one of Jose's students, and the first thing she mentioned when we talked about glue was how sensitive fish glue is to humidity. That wasn't terribly confidence-inspiring...

One other comment:
Apparently, the isinglass fish glue made from sturgeons is the most humidity resistant of all the fish glues. So if you're going to use the stuff, you might want the high priced spread...

I've been using it for about 7 years now without a single incident. In my experience its more sensitive to water than humidity, though extreme humidity could be an issue. I'm going to be making a guitar for someone in Singapore in about a year and I'm expecting to be mainly using titebond, to be on the safe side.

I think its only an issue under very extreme circumstances, which hopefully my guitars will never be subject to. I don't expect people are bringing them to the beach.

_________________
Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/

Rick this fish glue/humidity problem is one of those things that has got blown up out of all proportion.

As many of the people here know, I have been running tests on various fish glues for many months now. Using glued-up samples of; hardwood/hardwood, hardwood/softwood and softwood/softwood joints.

Testing to destruction the wood always gave way before the glue joint on all samples.

To test the humidity question I have had samples in our shower room for several months now, they get exposed to near 100% hunidity several times a day even getting covered in condensation and so far all of the joints are as good as they were when first made, some of the wood is looking a bit sorry for itself, but the glue joint is just fine.

I think if you were going to take a job as guitarist at a turkish baths or a sauna I might look elsewhere for a glue, but even there I think you'll always get severe problems with the wood itself long before the joint lets go.

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

What types of fish glue are you testing, Colin? What type is the 'shower' glue?

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

It is an interesting subject.  I read an article today about HHG and the fact that it actually looses 1/3 of it's strength at 84% humidity.  It was a comparison between HHG and LHG, and the HHG obviously won out for varying conditions.  It doesn't answer the Fish Glue issue, but it does show a little weakness in the HHG at very high humidity.  Maybe not enough to cause a failure though.  Here is a link to the article if anyone is interested. They also tested at 150* F, to see what the effects of storing in an attic would be.  Pretty interesting.

http://aic.stanford.edu/sg/wag/1990/WAG_90_buck.pdf

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Good info, Colin and Joshua. I'm going by what I've researched on a number of Internet sites and now by what Monica said which must have come up in the Romanillos course. She brought up the issue, not I when we were talking about a particular project.

I build guitars for a lot of people who take them into extreme conditions on the road. Many of my guitars are not babied, and I get to see the results of this. Perhaps I'm too sensitive to these extremes, but that's my world.

Joshua, I'd suggest that instead of Titebond, you may want to consider the lower creep qualities of the LMI white glue which is just as easy to use. We use the LMI stuff for a lot of our production gluing, and it's very good.

I just received a gallon of the Norland Fish Glue!
I have not yet tryed it !
Would any of you like a sample (3 oz.) to try?
let me know.I have urine sample bottles(not used)
from a doctor friend of mine!
I bought the gallon with the thought that many other wood workers would like to try it!
Plus the fact that a quart was $13. and a gallon was $25 .!

Do the math!

Let me know!
mike   


www.collinsguitars.com

_________________
Mike Collins

May i kindly deviate the topic towards the original issue 

Shawn, you have used the stuff before. Do you think I could glueup guitar parts with it.

I would have actually bought some, but i was broke and it is not that cheap!  But I guess I'll buy some next week and do some tests. 

In the mean while I noticed Madinter of Spain has the LV fish glue and I wanted to buy some tools from them anyway.

_________________
Build log

As with conversations re. other glues...PVA, epoxies, etc...not all fish glues are created equal. From what I've read, the best stuff and the most moisture resistant is the isinglass made from the air bladders of sturgeon...and no, I didn't make this up!   It can also be made from skin and bones, but the stuff used by the aficionados ( that would be afishionados...) is this Russian sturgeon stuff...as used by the Mongolian archery bow makers whose bows are amazing...

I've got some sturgeon swim bladders that were given to me by a Russian luthier. I didn't think too much of it at the time, but then I found out what the stuff costs! It does, indeed, make up into a very clear glue, and it's prized for that reason for gesso grounds for gilding: the plaster ends up whiter. The glue joints seem to be strong, although I must confess I only made up one small batch, and a few test pieces. The reason for the truncated trial is that this stuff stinks! It smells like the underside of the dack on an August afternoon after the fishing boat came in. A couple of cloves seemed to help in that respct, but I never got around to actually making a guitar with the stuff.

One of my students has made a whole guitar using the liquid fish glue. It's not quite done yet, and has never been out of my humidity controlled shop, so..... I was happy to hear of Colin's tests, though. and will pass that info on.

The long working time of this stuff is really nice. He had glued on his top bindings in my evening class, and wanted to remove the rubber rope to do the back. We made up some test blocks of leftover mahogany brace stock, simply clamping them with little spring clips. After a half hour we put one in the vice and whacked on the free end with a hammer: the glue simply peeled up, and was still tacky. I clipped it back together. About 15 minutes later we tried another, and got 100% wood shear, so we removed the rope. The free ends of the bindings started to peel, but with a little more glue and the rubber rope to hold them, they were down tight the next morning. The cool thing was that I tried the hammer test on that re-clamped joint, and got 100% wood shear on that, too, so it seems you've got as much as 1/2 hour of working time. It looks as though the liquid fish glue never gels. I'm thinking that for low-stress joints where long working time is handy, such as bindings, it might be a good deal.

Kremer sell Isinglass. There's a few .pdfs here with some info.

I found it interesting that Russian conservators will add honey to it as a plasticizer

Cheers

_________________

------------------------------------------------------
Bob Connor
Geelong, Australia

That's interesting.  They have exactly the same information sheet that Norland Products has - word for word, for their Fish Glue.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Sure Mike I love to test some. I sent a PM

The three brands I have tried tests on are The Lee Valley, Norland and Kremer. So far all brands have passed with flying colours and I would be happy to use any of them to build with. As I said they may eventually fail due to excessive humidity, but by that time I think the wood would be so out of shape that you'd be glad the thing fell apart.

There are differences to each them in terms of set up time, ease of sanding and clean-up. But they will all do the job for you.

As many of you know I have only used gelatin glues for a long time now, especially important on restoration work, HHG for things like braces, bridges, etc and fish for the long opening stuff; linings, attaching top and back plates, bindings.

Joshua, I agree with Rick that the LMI is superior to titebond.

For those in Europe, Madinter has the Lee Valley glue and Kremer (my personal favourite) is available direct from them.

Kremer fish glue

Colin

_________________
I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

[QUOTE=Colin S] The three brands I have tried tests on are The Lee Valley,
Norland and Kremer. [/QUOTE]

All of those are the same high tack fish glue manufactured by Norland.
Kremer and Lee Valley repackage and sell under their own brand.

I still prefer to buy direct from Norland, due to concerns about duration and
conditions of the storage by resellers. I have found slight changes in the
"stringiness" of the glue in a jar I left at room temperature for about a year. I
order a fresh batch once a year and keep all but a small daily use bottle
refrigerated.

_________________
Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

David - are you sure? I have both the LV and the Kremer, right here in front of me. They behave very differently from each other. Even the consistencies of the liquid are different.

_________________
Instagram: @jfrenchluthier
Web: https://www.jfrenchguitars.com/