•This subject has been touched on hundreds of times. Fish glue is good for installing pouches, and some valve facings. Hot glue is still best for pneumatics and gluing them to the deck. I have seen a buffet that is over 170 years old, and the hot glue is holding tightly. The original builders knew w...

•Fish glue, etc.: http://www.leathersupplyhouse.com/store_frame.htm http://www.columbiaorgan.com/col/glues.htm http://www.arndtorgansupply.com/pdfs/AddedProducts.pdf http://www.organsupply.com/ Hide glue mfg.: http://www.bjorn.net/ Releathering services: Columbia, Leather Supply, Northeast Organcraf...

•PVC-E glue is flexible. Glue a patch of pouch leather over the leak. Regards, Jon Page

•[ Ref. Jeff Davis in 1200908 MMDigest ] Hi all, The question was asked if alcohol breaks the glue joint. The answer -- hmmm..., yes, it does, sort of. I came across this tip very early on in my restoration days. I was given the restoration of an early Marshal Rose Angelus Grand with those awful twi...

•Methylated spirit is actually a blend of methyl alcohol (methanol) and ethyl alcohol (ethanol). For any company using ethanol, it is a very dangerous material to use because of the danger of illicit drinking by the staff. To overcome this problem, ethanol is mixed with methanol to make it taste awf...

•Hi Robbie and others, methylated spirits is indeed the name for denatured alcohol, but rubbing alcohol is not the same thing. Rubbing alcohol contains water -- depending on exactly what you buy, rubbing alcohol will contain as much as 30% water. Methylated spirits is basically methanol, otherwise k...

•To clarify the discussion on alcohol, methanol, CH3OH, also known as methyl alcohol and wood alcohol, is poisonous. Ethanol, C2H5OH, also known as ethyl alcohol is what we drink. To make it undrinkable, other liquids such as methanol are added. When it is so modified, it becomes denatured alcohol (...

•Since the common names change between continents, I offer the following: Methanol (CH3OH, methyl alcohol) is commonly called "wood alcohol" because it was originally made by destructive distillation of wood. It's highly toxic, especially when ingested. Don't. Ethanol (C2H5OH, ethyl alcohol, grain a...

•Hello all, I'll start off by saying that I have never used alcohol to soften hide glue joints. I have used alcohol on all of my projects to remove lacquer and to re-stain each of my pianos, and organs. In no instances have I seen alcohol do any damage or loosening of the joints. Someone mentioned a...

•Patrick Handscombe commented in 110307 MMDigest, "I think you'll find that some makers today use excellent water soluble cyanoacrylate wood adhesives for immediate hard joints." As a violin maker, I would respond, "Never do we do so!" The belly (front) and back plates are glued to the rib structure...

•In MMD 110308 Tim Crake says, "Patrick's practice of 'sealing stack and pneumatic boards first with water-soluble PVA to achieve a better RTV bond and to completely protect the original wood of the deck' has a drawback. By sealing the original wood with PVA, the repairer confines future repair of t...

•Paddy Handscombe's attempt to correct Tim Crake's comments regarding the use of hide, PVA, PVC-E and RTV adhesives itself contained several statements that should be corrected. He wrote: > In MMD 110308 Tim Crake says, "Patrick's practice of 'sealing stack > and pneumatic boards first with water-so...

•Many thanks to Ralph Nielsen for his most well-informed posting yesterday. Many of us have tried modern glues and found them wanting in certain applications and I thank Ralph for detailing his experience so eloquently. I have used hot glue for over thirty years but also use PVA and PVC-E glues in c...

•It occurs to me that perhaps a contributing reason for the RTV lobby seemingly being so anti-hide glue, may be its rapid gelling time. I'm sure it catches the best of us out at times. It is possible to modify animal glues to reduce their grab and gelling times, with little effect on performance. In...

•I'd like to thank everyone for the discussion on hide glue vs. modern PVA type glues. I think Ralph Nielsen put the discussion to bed with his expert opinion and experience in working with these glues. I'm a novice in mechanical music and hope to restore a couple of nickelodeon pianos whenever I ha...

•In 40 years of rebuilding players, my experience tells me that most rebuilders do serious damage to their players trying to part hot glue joints, and rarely manage to achieve airtight stack pneumatic joints with it. I don't want to be a party to such damage and failure again in future. Anyone who h...

•Nicholas Simons' experiment with soaking strips of dried emulsion glues was very interesting, matching what I see when I have needed to clean and repair badly-assembled joints that used PVA glue. A recent example for me was an unsightly, weak, badly-clamped repair of a diagonally split, deeply carv...

•Many thanks to Ralph Nielsen yesterday for his correction to my posting regarding the true nature of Resin-W wood glue. As I said in my posting, I had trawled the Internet and been unable to determine the nature of the various Resin-W varieties. After my posting I was sent a set of data sheets of t...

•There seems to be some obfuscation going on, intentional or not. I have never spoken about repairing furniture with PVA or RTV, and in rebuilding some piano parts I have sometimes used hot glue. However, I note that a friend of mine who produces famous bespoke modern furniture such as desks costing...

•I personally find it hard to believe that any modern glue is "better" than hide glue. For historical reasons alone, it's enough to demand the use of hide glue because that's what Mr. Welte used building his orchestrions, Aeolian used building their player pianos and the Duo-Art, and so forth. Beyon...