Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

Folks,

This a bit irrelevant to our foreign members, but for those of you in Australia and handy to an Aldi supermarket, one of this week's specials is a Chocolate Moulding Kit, the basis of which is little saucepan which sits in a small hotplate which gets up to 60°C, which is just about the exact temperature one needs for cooking up hide glue. Half fill the little saucepan with water and get a shot glass (or similar) and an instant glue pot. Best thing is that they are $15. Our local Aldi has half a dozen or so left as of this evening, so if anyone wants one, and doesn't have an Aldi handy, I can go a grab one or more tomorrow and mail them next week .

Back to the football. Unfortunately it looks as if Souths are getting flogged, at half time at least

cheers

graham

Mmmmmm . . . chocolate flavoured hot hide glue

Great idea Graham, very kind of you to offer to do this for folks. I would certainly take you up on the offer but I already have an Avent baby bottle warmer I picked up second hand quite cheap and it works very well. I think it was Colin Symonds who recommended these in a thread at the OLF and if I recall correctly Dave White uses one as well.

They take a small glue bottle just nice and the thermo is very accurate. So this is another option if you need a good glue warmer and if you know some people who have finished making a family, ask and you may get lucky.

P.S. Just had a look at the Aldi Chocolate Mould Kit, it looks real good at just $15.00 and you can buy online as well.

Cheers

Kim

I will second Kim's recommendation. I picked one up off of Ebay, paying more in shipping than I did for it. I hooked it up to my digital thermometer, got it where I wanted it and then set the alarm. It varied one degree over an hour. Works for me.

Hi Graham,

Thanks for the tip, I'll be there tomorrow for the groceries.

Sebastiaan

Thanks Graham, I found a small wax heater which does the job. About 20bucks.

But, I can't stand the smell and can't use it. I am using ubeaut pellets. Does the LMI stuff smell any better?

Dom

I think animal glue smells like animal glue. Its all just melted down horse's hooves or something. I rather like the smell, but I don't use it much

cheers

I bought 5 kg of the high clarity 192 gm strength from Tools For Wood. I don't find the smell offensive, but then again I don't mind the smell of sanding bone.

You can always put the glue into a small squeeze bottle and it will have almost no smell at all.

Dom.,
When I first started using hot glue as an apprentice, I didn't fancy the smell much either. In fact , I was repulsed a tad . The whole workshop would stink of it .
As time went on , I started to like it. Weird Huh ?



The smell becomes stronger as the glue gets older.


Cheers , Craig

Good tip Graham, thx, Emu Plains has about 30 in a stack.

Craig L wrote: The smell becomes stronger as the glue gets older.

and we like it more as WE get older. Funny that.

I've done some stinky jobs before. I worked for the CSIRO doing experiments on sheep and we used to have to go to the abattoir a lot and collect bits. I won't go into too much detail but we weren't collecting lamb chops . Could handle all that that place could serve up. Even the blood and bone making smells. But the glue just seems to stick in my throat.

Did i read somewhere that rabbit hide glue was strongest? maybe doesn't smell as bad.