>The Titebond M&T is quite flexible, and will only break when >bent sharply and quite suddenly. It's sort of a shear >thickening fluid, like Silly Putty, or a cornstarch and water >mix. Ron your five-month glue experiment is absolutely fascinating! Thank you for reporting the results. I noticed that the Titebond information sheet for M&T in fact lists it as "Thixotropic polyvinyl acetate". Tixotropic (just in case anyone here doesn't know, but I am sure everyone does) is the word for exactly the property of cornstarch & water and mixes like it, that flow and are easily fluid with slow movement, but become brittle with attempted rapid movement. It sounds as if, interestingly, the Titebond M&T retains the thixotropic property even when dry. For some applications, that might be useful. If in fact the dried M&T is brittle with rapid movement, then maybe it would be OK for hammers: If we can consider the movement of and vibration in a hammer as of sudden onset when it hits the string, then if the dried M&T is thixotropic, perhaps the join would in fact be extremely rigid at the onset of the hammer blow. But I dunno. Best, David.
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