Hide glue

[kiwigeo]

Stumbled on this on the website of a well known classical guitar maker:

" Hide glue is unsurpassed in transmitting higher partial harmonics. It dries to a crystalline state unlike tite-bond, which forms a plastic bond and actually inhibits the higher overtones. The guitars, as a result, have a much crisper attack and greater sustain."

Anyone care to comment? Has anyone concrete data that validates this statement?

My feeling is it would be about as valid as the dovetailed neck joint sounds better than bolt on neck argument.

I've used both Titebond and hide glue on my instruments and frankly I don't think it makes any difference to the sound.

Im not in my workshop but if I was Id be setting up a small experiment. Two bits of wood glued together with the two different glues. Id then do some tap tests on one end of the joint and record spectrum at the other end to see if they were markedly different.

If anybody's got some spare time it might be an interesting experiment.

[charangohabsburg]

Only two hits with google when searching for "Hide glue is unsurpassed in transmitting higher partial harmonics. It dries to a crystalline state unlike tite-bond, which forms a plastic bond and actually inhibits"


Unfortunately, neither of these glues seem to inhibit any unharmonic trolling mode (at least since 2006, which also google told me a couple of days ago).

[kiwigeo]

Someones already done some work on this: http://mcknightguitars.com/glue-vib.html

Results are interesting

Markus stop shit stirring.....

[nnickusa]

[Trevor Gore]

" Hide glue is unsurpassed in transmitting higher partial harmonics. It dries to a crystalline state unlike tite-bond, which forms a plastic bond and actually inhibits the higher overtones. The guitars, as a result, have a much crisper attack and greater sustain."

I was holding that one back, just in case I ever ran short of ammo. Never had to use it, as said classical guitar maker always provided more than enough.

I was chiselling the marriage strip off a back the other day, at the ends where it butts the blocks. Spruce onto EIR. When I got down to the glueline, it was a LOT harder than both the spruce and the EIR. I came to the conclusion that when the glueline is that much harder than the wood, the majority of the damping ain't in the glue.

Regarding McKnight's tests, it a fairly unusual way of doing things. With the data he had, IMO he should have been looking at log dec. rather than decay time in the way he measured it, including the start transient, which likely tells you as much about the hammer as it does the glue sample. I've suggested this to him and even offered to re-do the analysis. Then there's always the argument about whether or not he should have used anything other than wood.

[kiwigeo]

Then there's always the argument about whether or not he should have used anything other than wood.

I think he used steel because it's a more uniform material than wood.

Markus seems to have alot of spare time....would be a perfect project for our alpine horn blowing friend to undertake.

[liam_fnq]

Stumbled

Hilarious.

[charangohabsburg]

Markus seems to have alot of spare time....

Yes, I wasted 30 seconds of my life for each of the two google-searches.

[Trevor Gore]

I was chiselling the marriage strip off a back the other day, at the ends where it butts the blocks. Spruce onto EIR. When I got down to the glueline, it was a LOT harder than both the spruce and the EIR. I came to the conclusion that when the glueline is that much harder than the wood, the majority of the damping ain't in the glue.

BTW, the glue was Titebond Original.

[nnickusa]

I have to admit that I searched for a couple minutes to find one "James E Martin, New Mexico' and got bupkus. There is a guy by that name in Ann Arbor Michigan at the Uiv of Mich who IS a physicist, but deals with the physics of radiation exposure, or something, so I thought that mightn't be our guy. I am still to find the suggested Mr. martin. Surely, if he had a PhD, he'd be google-able(is that a word yet), but, alas, I have yet to find evidence of said gentleman......I weep from the lack of knowing....

[tippie53]

I am starting a scientific glue study and will post results when they are finished. I agree that up to now there is little in scientific facts about glues.
The study will be based on a protein glue vs Tite Bond
if the study proves to have an end result showing one better than the other we will expand the result to include the Hot Hide and lmi White.
Martin did a in house study a few years ago that showed hhg to have some advantages but nothing was done scientifically.
If anyone would be interested in helping let me know and I can email the test parameters and we can see if your results would be the same as ours. That would add validity to the study

[charangohabsburg]

I am starting a scientific glue study [...]
The study will be based on a protein glue vs Tite Bond
[...]

Something against something is not a scientific approach.
However, may I ask which properties/effects/circumstances related to these glue types are you planning to compare?

[tippie53]

As an engineer You make a blind study using what materials you wish to compare. The end result will tell you what would be best for the process you are planning on using.
So yes you can make a study of 2 items to make a comparison

What we will be looking for is not strength
those tests have been done to death in all cases the glues are plenty strong for the designed use

What we will be looking for is changes in sustain and wave amplitude and what ever else presents itself during the test. The samples will be both plucked as in a guitar and then vibrated using a tone generator. That way we should see an end result from a known input to a measured output.
also after an initial test the samples will be vibrated for a period of time and retested .

This will be a blind test as 2 people will be making samples and marked so only the person making the sample will know which glue is used for the sample

the tester will then test the samples for the chosen parameters . The data will then be studied at a local University . At that point we should be able to see if there is a relation of data in the samples.

The details of the test will be shown at the end of the study. We are not sure what we will see but hope to see if there really is a difference. Of all the posts about glue the end results are often based on subjective inference not true data.

[charangohabsburg]

So yes you can make a study of 2 items to make a comparison

Of course you can. Just cancel the term/idea "vs." in your project. It shouldn't even appear in your thoughts, much less in its written form at any stage of the study because it is what I have said: not a scientific approach. At its best, making a comparison with the vs.-thing somewhere in our heads would be nice but quite meaningless.

Also, it seems to me that nowadays the term "science" gets stretched too much and too often in luthierie related investigations, to a degree that it has almost gotten kind of a new myth. Let's call things we can do just what they are: a carefully thought out and prepared and well carried out comparison is just that, but at a closer look certainly far from what science is today if one doesn't have the means (money and time) to do profound enough studies that lead towards results we will be able to take for granted. In the case of the acoustical behaviour of glued up wood this would mean mean to work towards naming and quantifying the responsible glue properties, which I believe are beyond the possibilities of a group of individuals who do this as something different than their long-term full-time job.

Please don't misunderstand me, by no means I want to to discourage you to carry out your comparison, I only want to point out the increasing (ab)use of the inflationary term "science" for relatively simple double blindfold tests and the like. Today there is much more to science than there was a century and more ago.

Cheers,

[kiwigeo]

A blind test......one experiment is done while youre sobre.....the second run is done after 6 pints of Guninness

[Eric Reid]

So yes you can make a study of 2 items to make a comparison

Of course you can. Just cancel the term/idea "vs." in your project. It shouldn't even appear in your thoughts, much less in its written form at any stage of the study because it is what I have said: not a scientific approach. At its best, making a comparison with the vs.-thing somewhere in our heads would be nice but quite meaningless.

Also, it seems to me that nowadays the term "science" gets stretched too much and too often in luthierie related investigations, to a degree that it has almost gotten kind of a new myth. Let's call things we can do just what they are: a carefully thought out and prepared and well carried out comparison is just that, but at a closer look certainly far from what science is today if one doesn't have the means (money and time) to do profound enough studies that lead towards results we will be able to take for granted. In the case of the acoustical behaviour of glued up wood this would mean mean to work towards naming and quantifying the responsible glue properties, which I believe are beyond the possibilities of a group of individuals who do this as something different than their long-term full-time job.

Please don't misunderstand me, by no means I want to to discourage you to carry out your comparison, I only want to point out the increasing (ab)use of the inflationary term "science" for relatively simple double blindfold tests and the like. Today there is much more to science than there was a century and more ago.

Cheers,

Markus--We agree that there's a lot of pseudo-science in luthier-science. Maybe we can agree that there's a lot of pseudo-science in all science (at least "science" as defined by "published in a peer-reviewed journal". Maybe we can agree on that, or maybe we can't. Beyond that, I think we disagree.

Regarding "vs": I think this may be a language issue. Maybe you understand the Latin meaning of "versus", and assume that the English usage is the same. Foolish assumption! Not only do we English speakers assume the right to foist our language on everyone else, we take it for granted that our own corruptions of borrowed terms have legitimacy. Here in Centeroftheuniverseland, "vs" often means simply "as compared to".

As for what constitutes science, well here we really disagree. You sound like a real scientist in your contempt for other areas of science. Yup, science has come a long way. At this point though, I'm glad that medical researchers aren't waiting until they know why a drug cures, but are satisfied with knowing that it works. Luthiers are still struggling to show that science is part of what they do. If we rise to the level of medical research, I think we can still call that science.

[Eric Reid]

I'll just add that I worry less about the things we can measure, but can't explain, than I do about the things we can explain, but can't measure.