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glue recipes???
JW_Halverson:
GELATIN:
Two packages of the gelatin (unsweetened and unflavored of course) and about 1 1/2 cups of cold water. I use a steel saucepan about 1 qt in capacity. Let it sit until all the crystals have soaked up water and sunk. Then I set that pot in a larger pot half full of hot water, hot but not boiling. Slowly stir the wetted gelatin crystals and water until it all is dissolved. I never apply heat directly to the glue pot because it can easily get too hot and weaken the glue.
HIDE GLUE:
Toss the sinew/hide scraps in a metal pot, cover with distilled water, place a lid on it and pop it in the oven at the lowest temp it will operate at. Stir about once an hour. Keep adding distilled water so that the scraps are always just barely covered. Keep this going for about 6-8 hours. Strain the glue thru muslin or cheesecloth, discard solids. If it's thinner than you like, pop it back in the oven with the lid off and stir every 1/2 hour or so until it's at the thickness you like. Here's a critical part. Let it completely cool in the oven without disturbing it at ALL. It should gel by the time it reaches room temp. While gelled at room temp, blot the surface of the glue gently with paper towels to absorb any grease or oil that has floated to the top. The smaller you cut up the hide scraps the better the yield. Boiling this mess makes for a weaker glue and if it is going to stink it makes sure the stink spreads further and faster.
Clear as mud?
Bevan R.:
Thanks JW!! I am going to try that with some flax on a piece of RO.
GaryR:
JW, I know I want the hide clean of flesh and hair, but can I cook it as is? Everything I've read on this says rawhide. I assume thats because rawhide is usually readily available whereas fresh hide isn't. Can this glue just sit out and dry out to be used at a later application? Will cooking in the oven make it smell up the house? I have a wife who frowns on this type of thing.
Thanx,
Gary
JW_Halverson:
If the hide didn't stink when it was wet the glue won't stink. Even a stinky hide will make fairly decent glue, but it will stink.
Hide glue will mold pretty quickly if left out. I freeze mine because it's easier to thaw then to rehydrate. If you don't have the freezer space pour your glue out in the thinnest layers you can. When it gels you can cut it in thin strips. If you lay the strips in a cool place with a fan blowing across them it will dry pretty quick. Once dried these skinny little strips will scare you with how much effort it makes to break up.
This winter I dried a batch of hide glue by pouring a 1/4 cup in a large rubber oil pan. I let it run around everywhere so that it was paper thin. It dried in about 4 hours and I'd peel it out and crumble 'em like potato chips so they were tiny flakes. More surface area, should rehydrate faster that way, too.
osage outlaw:
JW, could you use a crock pot to make the sinew glue? I just got a new/used one for simmering small skulls that I could use. I'm not even going to ask the wife if I can make hide glue on her new stove. I don't need the glue that bad ;D
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