titebond hide glue over 24h still soft.

[ka_who]

Hi people,
I recently purchased an oldish Maton guitar yet to receive with a cracked neck, I will share some images as soon as I receive the guitar. I thought a good idea to use titebond hide glue for repair (might not be the best choice) anyways to be prepaid go ahead and ordered some from Amazon. it arrived and I test it on a piece of balsa and after 24h still softish and can dent with fingernails, also been a really damp and cold weekend in Sydney. is it the glue or weather? should I wait more or heat the joint or better to use epoxy or superglue? I have a special low viscosity epoxy wich set super-strong which I used it before on a 1/2 size guitar neck and worked beautifully.
thanks
Al

[kiwigeo]

If you're going to use hide glue make it up fresh from granules rather than use the ready in a bottle stuff.

Which glue to use? Each glue has its pros and cons. Hide glue has a high shear strength so good for bridges etc. It also makes for a reversible joint. Clean up is also alot easier than with Titebond. The downside.....having to cook up the stuff.

For a neck repair job I'd generally be using Titebond I. Epoxy.....not what I'd use for a cracked neck.

Suggest you post up pictures and wait on advice from members of this forum who are experienced repair people before attacking that Maton.

[Mark McLean]

Martin’s advice is sound. Bottled hide glue is certainly not the same as hot hide glue made fresh from the granules. I would also be going for Titebond original ( red label) to repair a cracked neck.

[ka_who]

Thanks kiwigeo,
I returned the bad glue and used your advice and purchased titebond original I, the guitar arrived yesterday tuned with strings on, the crack was very thin and clean crack wich very hard to open, I used some parachute wire to pull the neck backwards to glue the crack. I read people use an air compressor to push the glue but I don't have an air compressor to use it to push the glue in the crack so I invented my reverse glue pull method and pull the glue with some plastic hoes and plastic food wrap. it worked perfectly and I inject 5ml glue while vacuum cleaner sucks the air and glue while stretching the crack. I clamped the neck for 2 houver4s and after that lightly sanded and used some leftover shellack to hide the sanding area. I have to say it turned better than what I thought and so far I'm very happy with the guitar. i don't know anything about this brand but it is made in Australia it's very light and smallish. even the saddle is 2/3 of the other guitars. again thanks for the advice.
Al

[Mark McLean]

Looks like you got a good result. Maton is a good quality instrument, so if the price was good you have done really well.