At 09:01 -0700 26/10/07, David Ilvedson wrote: >You quicken it up in microwave. High setting 15 seconds at a >time...stirring, but glue pot always works for me. Let is heat up >and stir...should be no tapioca....smooth like thick honey...it >should smell bad...mine doesn't...got from Schaff ages ago.... You all seem to be cooking the glue! The way to prepare glue is to mix it with COLD water and cover it, about 1:1 by volume to start with, depending on what consistency you need. Once all the water has been taken up by the glue it will melt to an even consistency once it is warmed up. All this talk of stirring and stirring is quite irrelevant if you just think an hour or so ahead. As to the consistency and the temperature, different jobs have different requirements and one of the many advantages of hide glue is that from a single product you can produce a glue for many different tasks. However, whatever consistency and and temperature is used, the glue should never be "sticky", which would make it quite impractical. I have no idea of American manufacturers' practices over the years but ALL the pianos I deal with are built with hide glue and I never use anything else except for certain permanent repair jobs on the case where an epoxy is more convenient. JD
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