Posted on August 1, 2022May 19, 2025 by Dale Phillips Separating Glued Joints Separating Glued Joints by Nick Hayden Originally published as Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #7, 1975 Here’s a good method for separating glue. I’ve taken so many tops off without breaking, it isn’t even funny. First of all, you have to get white vinegar, then heat it up. It has to be hot. Work it into the glue joint. Use a razor knife and a small brush. The glue will turn white and you can work it loose. I told this to Bill Spigelsky, and he couldn’t get over it, when he tried it. ◆
Posted on August 1, 2022May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Epoxy Epoxy by Paul Jacobson Originally published in Guild of American Luthiers Data Sheet #90, 1978 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 For the contemporary luthier, epoxy opens up an entire realm of innovative techniques never before possible. It can be more than a mere substitute for earlier, less satisfactory materials; it can make way for totally new design concepts in the luthier’s art. Epoxy is so different from any material used in the past by luthiers that it requires a whole new set of assumptions about application possibilities and handling techniques. Many luthiers who have had any experience at all with epoxy think of it as merely a kind of glue and may substitute it on occasion for Elmer’s. To be sure, epoxy is an excellent adhesive, but to think of it as just glue is to have a limited concept of its basic properties and its vast potential in lutherie. Epoxy, the Material. Epoxy is one of a group of chemicals known as thermoset plastics in which change from liquid to solid occurs by endothermic chemical reaction rather than ectothermic hardening or volatilization of a solvent. The reaction is nonreversible; epoxy, once hardened, cannot be melted with heat or dissolved in any solvent. Heat of 150°F or higher will soften it slightly, but as the heat increases the epoxy undergoes molecular deterioration rather than melting and tends to turn crumbly. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on August 13, 2021May 14, 2025 by Dale Phillips Activating Hide Glue with Steam Activating Hide Glue with Steam by James Ham Originally published in American Lutherie #102, 2010 A technique of mine that has attracted considerable attention involves the use of fresh hide glue in assembling my basses. Rather than rush to clamp a joint before the glue gels (not an option on a large instrument) or try to work hot glue into a joint with a knife, I coat both surfaces to be joined with glue, and then allow it to dry before clamping. When the pieces are perfectly aligned, I reactivate the glue with a focused blast of steam from a handheld steamer. The idea developed over many years repairing instruments. One of the most common repairs I encountered was that of regluing an open seam. The normal method is to introduce hot water with a thin palette knife and move it around until the glue feels slippery, then add some fresh glue with the knife and clamp it. Sometimes you don’t even have to add fresh glue. New hide glue is perfectly compatible with old. If the seam is open for a long way, you need to put the clamps on before you do this, and loosen just a few at a time so you can get the knife in. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on August 11, 2021May 5, 2025 by Dale Phillips Jack Batts Jack Batts An interview by Jeff Feltman Originally published in American Lutherie #10, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 You can walk into a clockmaker’s shop and see fifty clocks. One reads 12:00, another says 11:55, another 12:05. Only one can be right, and it probably isn’t a bad guess that none of them is right. Searching for the right varnish is like being in that clock shop.” “A man could make 150 more violins in his life if he wasn’t so worried about concocting some witches brew. He would do well to spend his time learning to make a fine violin.” Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
Posted on December 27, 2020May 20, 2025 by Dale Phillips Letter: Glue, Chemistry, Etc Letter: Glue, Chemistry, Etc. by Lloyd Scott Ogelsby Originally published in American Lutherie #11, 1987 and Big Red Book of American Lutherie Volume One, 2000 Dear Tim, The history of your Guild closely parallels the history of the Pyrotechnics Guild International Inc., but your publication and membership are twice the size of ours. Who’d have thought we could find over a thousand folks that roll their own fireworks! The PGII is now the largest fireworks organization in history and we have more pros than the pro organization. Come to our convention, I promise you the best fireworks on planet earth and enough of them. It’s a lot of blasts. Due to back and neck injury, what is left of me has taken up violin making. Until August 14th last year I had quite a laboratory at home, doing research on varnish and wood treatment. The house burned down — gone. It’s easy to distract an old chemist with ancient chemical puzzles. For the last two years I had made hundreds of these funny organic polyester blends that form glass structure polymers that are traditionally called natural resin and oil varnishes. I played with everything from boil your own sink oil to road paint phenolics, phthalic ester resins, and isophthalatics, and had spent a fortunes on resins and oils in a shotgun approach to educating myself on phytochemistry and what to preserve and pretty up wood with. Fortunately the chemistry is simple, if very complex in the number of products that the four principle reactions can make. Become A Member to Continue Reading This Article This article is part of our premium web content offered to Guild members. To view this and other web articles, join the Guild of American Luthiers. Members also receive 4 annual issues of American Lutherie and get discounts on products. For details, visit the membership page. If you are already a member, login for access or contact us to setup your account.
