Salt in hide glue?

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Doug Polk
Posts: 24
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:02 pm

Salt in hide glue?

Post by Doug Polk »

Just rewad the post about using urea in hide glue to extend working time. I have also read somewhere that plain table salt can be used as well. Any truth to this?
Chris Reed
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Feb 02, 2012 6:26 pm

Re: Salt in hide glue?

Post by Chris Reed »

I've also read this. I believe the trade off is working time for joint strength.
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Woodrow Brackett
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Location: Grover NC
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Re: Salt in hide glue?

Post by Woodrow Brackett »

I have used salt to extend open times. I use hot hide glue, pretty much exclusively, but I'm not sure what gram strength I have. I've got a couple five gallon buckets that were handed down several generations. It's my understanding that higher gram strength gels quicker....at a warmer temp.......lower gram strengths gel at a lower temp. The glue I use gels at ~95 degrees F. Adding 10% salt will lower the gel point ~10 degrees. It seems OK in tests I done. I used HHG +10% salt to close the box for a while, but finally decided I didn't need the extra time. Mario has a video closing the box with HHG. He's quick and efficient, but isn't.....running around like a mad man. It helped me realize I didn't need the extra time.

By "adding 10% salt" I'm saying for an example, 20 grams for glue granules, 2 grams salt.....then the approiate amount of water. Another observation it took me a while to figure out. Glue that's really thin/watery gels quicker. Thicker glue tends to hold heat better, at least for me. Always test on scrap, and YMMV
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Nick Middleton
Posts: 91
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:49 am

Re: Salt in hide glue?

Post by Nick Middleton »

Here's an article Popular Woodworking posted a while back regarding this:

http://www.popularwoodworking.com/artic ... iquid-form


At the bottom of the article they talked about using salt to convert HHG to LHG
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