A Hide Glue Repair
April 21st, 2009 in blogs
David Pruett, contributor
6 users recommend
Video Length: 2:10
Produced by: D. Pruett - Folding Rule Woodworking
Last night I was startled awake from a woodworking daydream by a loud crashing sound from our home office. The side and bottom fell out of drawer of our antique oak desk when Beth was trying to get a box of staples from the rear of the long drawer. Sounds like a repair brewing! Well this desk is an older "antique" oak English library desk. Beth and I bought it 25 years ago from Square Nail Antiques in Santa Cruz, California. It is a great desk, but honestly it is nothing super special . . . just a good sturdy desk that has served us well.
Now there are many ways to approach this repair. Given my interest in "blended methods", I chose a traditional method using animal hide glue. It was very interesting to examine the (machine cut) dovetails, drawer bottom groove and the 3-ply drawer bottom. To get things going, I gently scraped away the old glue and brittle shellac from the dovetails and drawer side.
I was met by a surprise when I retrieved my hide glue jar from the refrigerator. A small patch of mold had begun to grow along one edge of the glue. Serves me right! It had been awhile since I had fired up the glue pot.
I quickly mixed up a fresh batch and got to work repairing the drawer. In no time at all the drawer was in the clamps and I had a fresh batch of hide glue for up coming projects.
David Pruett
posted in: blogs
ABOUT GLUETUBE
GlueTube is FineWoodworking.com's video blog that features self-produced videos about woodworking submitted by woodworkers around the globe. The videos featured here stream direct from video file-sharing Web sites including YouTube, Howcast, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Brightcove.tv and Google Video.
Learn about our new format!
Looking for our Archive?
Comments (0)
You must be logged in to post comments. Click here to login.