My wife has brought home an old dresser drawer belonging to a friend and asked me to repair it as it has come apart. It’s well over 50 years old and had been constructed with half blind and through dovetails. The dovetails are in good shape and the pieces fit right back together with no problem.
Due to its age, I’m assuming it was originally glued up with hide glue which has lost its bond. I plan on gluing it back together using Titebond wood glue. My question is this: Will the remains to the original glue interfere with the new glue? If so, how can I clean out the dovetails to ensure a good bond with the new glue. Or, should I get a bottle of hide glue and use it instead of regular wood glue. If I do that, the same question applies. Do I need to somehow try to clean the old glue out of the dovetails?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Replies
I don't think the probable hide glue will interfer with the Titebond but you should clean out the old glue for a better fit. I think that old hide glue is probably very brittle and should come out easy enough.
john
tj, if the original glue was hide glue you should be able to tell easily enough.It'll be brown, brittle, and perhaps a little glassy looking.
If you're still not quite sure if it is actually hide glue you can test easily enough too with some hot water, or even cold water will do if left long enough. You can also test with white vinegar as both water and vinegar will soften the glue. Water reactivates the glue and by wetting a socket or two between the pins and waiting for a while, if it is hide glue it'll go soft and sticky to the touch.
If you can establish for sure that it is hide glue you could set up a little steam pipe off something like a wallpaper stripper or kettle of some sort. Direct the jet of steam at the glue. Hot water or steam simply gets the glue reactivated faster than cold water and you can soften it and wash it out with a cheap artists brush or similar dipped in hot water. Vinegar, as mentioned before will also soften the glue enough to wipe most of it out.
Anyway, once you've got most of the glue away from the parts needing it you can use hide glue again to put the whole lot back together. The neat thing about hide glue is that new glue will bond with old hide glue that's been softened up as described. It's about the only glue I can think of off the top of my head that will bond with old hide glue.
You can use cold liquid hide glue-- Franklin's is one brand available off the shelf, but watch out for the use-by date stamped on the bottle. The use-by date really means what it says. If you've got one of those baby bottle warmers these are just about right for warming up traditional pearl type hide glue that's been soaked in water for 12 or 24 hours. You can also use a microwave to warm it up and rig up a double boiler of an old food tin and a pan of water on the ring of your cooker.
Your wife will become positively moist with excitement at the the smell of hide glue cooking in the kitchen and she'll probably jump on you-- for I know not what (sic)-- but she probably won't bring home any more work associate's drawers for you to fix, ha, ha.
Unfortunately, PVA type glues don't bond very well with old hide glue. New PVA doesn't bond well with old PVA either, and I can't think of any other glues that bond successfully with old versions of themselves, except perhaps epoxyy resin to epoxy resin-- I could be wrong here.
So, if you find that the old glue was not hide glue, then the best repair will involve scraping off the old glue as best you can to create a new clean wood to wood bond. That'll have to do you for now. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Edited 8/3/2006 1:45 pm by SgianDubh
Thank for the info. Very informative. I'll pick up a bottle of hide glue tomorrow and get the job done this weekend.
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