glue for joining plate halves

[austin]

Well, I have a beautiful joint ready to glue on some very nice red spruce plate halves and...

I know it is probably not the best, but since I don't have a hideglue pot, can I get away with titebond?? (not the titebond hide glue stuff, just the regular titebond wood glue)

[Chris Baird]

Titebond works well for the whole mandolin. I use hide glue for most joints but titebond will work perfectly in every instance applicable.

[JeffS]

You mentioned not having a hide glue pot. Is that your reason for not using hide glue? If you don't have Stew-Mac's $100 glue pot you can find other heating devices, ie baby bottle warmer or a crock pot at thrift stores, garage sales, and flea markets.

[Chris Burt]

One advantage of using hot hide glue I've not often seen mentioned--no clamps required:

Cut an excellent center joint with a sharp hand joiner plane, warm the joint surfaces under your bench light, quickly brush on hot hide glue, rub the two halves together (ensuring that squeeze out occurs all along the joint and the last rub aligns the halves), and set the plate halves against a wall so that gravity will not stress the joint. No clamps necessary. The hot glue, as it dries, sucks the two halves together to form a amazingly thin joint that is visible only if you track the structure of the wood on either side of the joint. The color of the dried hot glue is similar to that of the woods' late wood which further fools the eye into overlooking the finished joint.

[austin]

I used titebond for my last couple of mando projects, but I want to switch to the hide glue, in part because this is the first time I am going totally from scratch and joining my own plate halves and want to do it right.

I like the idea of a less visible glue joint! What temperature does the glue need to be?

[Chris Baird]

No matter what glue you use there should be no visible glue line. As was stated above the ability to get good joints without clamps is the main reason I use hideglue over titebond. Another is that titebond will creep around some if you don't have it secured well. Hide glue just sticks things together very quickly and doesn't let the parts get out of alignment while drying. I keep my hide glue at 145 F in a "pouporri crock", a $2 thrift store find. I don't believe that any particular glue is better acoustically in a proper glue joint that is only a few molecules thick. The main things to consider are ease of assembly and ease of dissasembly. I feel that hide glue really is easier to use for many joints. Occasionally I will need to glue something(fretboard extender etc..) and if the hide glue isn't hot I'll just use titebond. In many instances I really don't think it matters in the final product.

[boboshoes]

The problem I have with titebond on the back or front seem is creep after it's dry. After it's polished it will usually show up within a month or so. A faint line in the finish between the two halves. You can relevel with sandpaper and polish it again but I have found it WILL come back.

That's the main reason I switched to hide glue. It dries to a glass like consistency where titebond seems to stay in more of a plastic state. It will creep a little depending on how the plates are acting and you can see this in the finish. Nothing to worry about except the cosmetics. I never had the problem since switching to hide glue.