Rehab for a 61 Concert

[telentubes]

Just finished covering a finger joined pine cab with tweed, using hide glue (NOT liquid, but made fresh and used hot).
Easier than contact cement, and the "stick" is unreal. You can't get the fabric off once cured (test piece left to dry over night). No fumes, no waiting, no staples, and you can work your way around at a casual pace just smoothing the tweed onto the wood with a block (or the palm of your hand). Highly recommended.

[billyz]

Yes, hide glue is so much better than contact cement. Easier to work, holds better, sounds better. Cleans up with water. Don't understand why people are afraid to use it .
Congratulations !

[rp]

Come guys it's not that easy, I'm pretty handy, I had a tough time, there's a learning curve. It smells, not horrid, like rotten soup, organic stink, better than modern chemicals but not better than water based stuff. Like most natural stinks, like horse shit, you get used to it.

I just did a head for now, you have to keep the glue at the right temp, if you overheat it you kill it supposedly, I don't have a glue pot so I used a bain-marie but had to keep going into the kitchen, and I kept a thermometer in it just in case. It is sticky as all hell, even more than contact cement, but only at a certain moment, the window when you can mate the two pieces is small, like 30 seconds, you can't mate it when it's still slimy, nor after it starts to skin over, but you just have to brush it with hot water and re-try. I learned to spread on a few inches at a time and roll the vinyl across rather than try and do a panel all at once. My biggest problem was the tolex which absorbs a fair amount and slows you down. It was tough having to brush glue on both the parts in stages as i rolled it across. One very useful thing I found with all types of glue is a quick coat of shellac to seal the wood. Glue goes on very fast and even, and thin, so you save on glue. You should shellac anyway to seal the knots, at least. You must use alcohol shellac to seal knots BTW.

Best is if you screw up hot water and mud knife gets the tolex off, but have patience, let the hot water work in in stages it doesn't just snap off as I would have thought, shit is is strong and tenacious. Best is you can clean the wood up with more hot water and rags, and you have a perfect raw head at the end, no solvents and sanding. I've thrown heads out cause I couldn't deal with removing the old contact cement or welbond etc. It's not mess-less, especially when learning, but water and soap and you're ready for the opera.

When you rap on your cab it rings different than if you used rubber or vinyl adhesives, you can hear it, sharp clear tone. I was reading articles about acoustic guitars and hide glue. Hide glue is way stronger than most modern glues, there was chart and the hide glue was outrageous strong, dries crystalline - rock hard, no creep at all, all other glues creep over time, even if only nanometers over decades, hide glue was zero. It's one reason old guitars have that mojo, pva glues act like a gasket at the seams, hide glues lets the sound transmit faster around the instrument. Wood resins crystalize over the decades too, so there's a material similarity btwn the wood and glue. Maybe BS but sounds good to me. And it comes apart pretty easy even after centuries allowing for perfect repairs. If it was made by a petro-chemical conglomerate it'd be sold as the ultimate modern wonder glue.

I can see once I get the hang of it that I'll probably never use anything but hide glue, but if you tolex something every 3 years it's hard to get the hang of it.

BTW Big tip: use anything BUT solvent based Weldwood type laminate adhesive. It softens the tolex, allows it to stretch, After a year or two tolex pulls back and all your corners or butted seems open. All your nice work for nothing.

[cbass]

Hide glue is easiest to work with if your shop temp is about 110.If you are trying to use it in cold westher you are gonna have a tough time

[rp]

Hide glue is easiest to work with if your shop temp is about 110.If you are trying to use it in cold westher you are gonna have a tough time

Must be why I moved to Bumfucco! I die of boredom at the beach, maybe I'll do my hide gluing there Get myself a nice little plastic bucket with crabs and seashells on it for my glue. At 2pm in July prolly don't even need to heat the stuff. Use the world as my regulated glue pot. But will I have to wait till sunset for it to set up? Time for an aperitivo or three.

[billyz]

An old electric frying pan works well to keep it at the right temperature.
There are a few different kinds of glue. Rabbit , fish, hide. Different grades too. Some comes in flakes, pearls, or semi hard blocks(like gelatin).
Book binders use a lot of it.

[Structo]

Cool amp!

I have never played through a brown face.

Love to own a ~50w Super

[dreric]

Thanks to all for the valuable feedback. Sorry to disappoint but the amp went into a recovered Fender cabinet. I've done the research on a repro 4-10 and I may do that in the future but for now I just want to be able to play the amp safely.

As to the whole tolex glue issue. IME, having done about 4 cabinets all I've learned is that Wellbond water soluble contact cement is a terrible product. Taylor recommends Wilson Art H2O water based contact, which is impossible to buy in California. I use a comparable 3M product, it's OK and reasonably forgiving.

As to hide glue, I have no doubt that some can hear the difference. I'll pass for now as it requires a skill set that I don't care to develop.

Here's some photo's of the finished work:

[dreric]

Mo'