A friend has asked me to fix an antique (ca. 1880’s) rocking chair that he uses almost every day. He tells me that it’s “falling apart” and needs to be re-glued. Due to it’s age, I’m sure that it was originally assembled with hide glue and I have no idea of what may have been done to “fix it” over the years.
I’ve used regular wood glue to fix other old pieces of furniture that had been assembled with hide glue, but the “fixes” didn’t seem to hold up very well so I’m thinking I may try using hide glue on this rocker.
Can anyone give me a short course in using hide glue? I’m mostly interested in cleaning and prepping the old joints.
Thanks
Edited 3/22/2007 7:36 pm by Dave45
Replies
Dave,
Have you looked at this chair? It may not be glued at all. If it were originally glued with hide glue, the only reason to use hide glue again would be if the chair has high value as an antique. It would be interesting to have a more thorough description of your fixes that did not hold up.
Cadiddlehopper
You can crystallize old glue by injecting a bit of denatured alcohol and waiting a minute for it to work. Hot water or steam also work. Warm water on a rag will clean off the old glue once the joints are open. I use a 1/8" mortise chisel or plumber's pipe brushes to clean out the mortises.
You don't need to be super careful, because the new hide glue will reactivate the old.
I use the cold version because it has longer closed time. I can't move fast enough with the hot version on most chairs.
If you have access to Bob Flexner's "Repairing Furniture" video (Taunton), he covers the subject very well. Maybe your friend will buy it for you in advance for doing the work?
Here's a hide glue article at a conservation web site:
http://www.deller.com/newpage8.htm
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
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