Quality Hide Glue From Scratch #1: Introduction, overview, materials etc... 

Cool, that makes sense. Kind of like the repairable furniture thing. thanks.

whinnys....

That sounds cool. I'll have to look into it. Thanks.

Yeah, it's awesome stuff. I make the stick kind for illustrations and stuff. I hope to get a video out this year on that so I can proceed with some art projects that use it.

that's how we roll here :)

It is a pain to use. I think that is one reason it's not used much anymore. You have to use it while it's hot. And it spoils if you have it around too long before using.

I think most hide glue is good enough for backing bows.

Not this video i know but i forgot to ask this when i was watching that video. Yea i binge all of them 😆

Hey, I don't have a video of that. I made it about 20 years ago. It was a made with green alder wood, carved with hand tools. It is after some African bellows that are made of clay, but very similar. The valve is very simple, just a hole, with a flap of leather over it on the inside. When you draw up, the leather flap lifts letting air in and closes again when you push down. The tubes are elderberry, but could be bamboo or any other stem with a very large pith that can be knocked out, or is naturally hollow. The leather is deer skin, but could be goat, sheep or similar light thinnish leather. it is softened with brains and oil. it's pretty bad ass and moves quite a bit of air for the size. The originals were just empty leather bags, but I found that they didn't fill up very well, so I made wooden hoops out of hazel sticks and tied them inside so it fills up really full. Actually, the African ones not only didn't have hoops, but they didn't have valves and the user let go of the top slightly to let air in on the upstroke, then squeezed it shut for the downstroke. They didn't hold much air, but they pump them super fast. If you carve some, use green wood and keep it wet so it doesn't crack. If you don't get all the walls thin enough it will be much more prone to check. I imagine cottonwood or other poplars would probably work pretty good, but it's hard to beat green alder for something like that. let me know if you ever do it :)

Thanks John, welcome :)

They say not to and I've had some trouble in the past. You can try, but I would avoid it if possible.

@@SkillCult do you think deer ears would be good for glue?

Thanks bruh!

No, not a good choice, because it is extremely water soluble. Only way I know to make it waterproof is by adding formaldehyde. There are other water resistant natural glues, namely casein and blood glues, which use lime, borax or other alkali stuff. I have a video on modifying opinel where I use cheese glue. it's not wet for long periods of time, but it's still holding up and it was a pretty crappy job with the glue making.

Yeah, it's cool. I've never gotten into it enough to figure out how to make it really strong. I have a small video project I used it on. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1HO8cx55boQ.html which is still holding up btw.

It can be done chemically, but not by cooking. They used to recover leather scraps for glue when hide glue was valuable enough to warrant the cost and hassle, but I doubt it's practical for anyone now. there is plenty of skin around.

@@SkillCult That's probably true - and most of it likely goes from the abattoir straight to the landfill. What a waste.

@@SkillCult I didn't realize you have a whole series on tanning. Crikey, you've got a lot of videos on crafts. RU-vid is a great preservation medium for arts that otherwise could be lost.

I don't actually know. It is recommended not to freeze in an old glue making book that I have.

Casein glue, also called cheese glue. it's not perfectly waterproof, but closest thing probably.

SkillCult awesome. Will you make a video about that? Also is it possible for you to make a hair on bark tanned skin, like sheep skin?

I don't think so. Not totally sure, but there are a gajillion old wooden things glued with hide glue. It was the main glue forever.

Thanks. I've messed with that a little bit, it's really neat. Mine doesn't always set fast, maybe I'm using it too thick? Dunno. I plan to play with it more.

Just call me Michelangelo... or Strativari

Yes, Cartilage is a different protein though, chondrin I think. As far as I understand, collagen, the stuff tendons and skin are made of, makes better glue and I think also dissolves more quickly. My guess is that the legs were made into various grads of glue like other things with there being several cookings each making subsequently weaker glue. Bone glue was also made, (also chondrin?) but I think it was mostly for a lack of enough collagen.

I'm not sure about the glue, since I've never attempted to make one, but I did try to extract pure gelatin out of cartilage (chicken mostly). Long story short - it's a bitch. Takes forever to cook (like a day and a half of slow cooking, then a few more hours of evaporating the water, then drying) and the yield is somewhat low, but the gelatin came out almost pure white. The best results I had with fish, actually (skins, bones and scales)

I'm not that familiar with glue making processes for cartilage/bone and there is little reason for us to use it since collagen sources tend to be easy to get and make stronger glue. Fish skins and air bladders can bake excellent glue.

I'd be interested in where that info comes from, because I've only seen some very vague references to using an acid with hooves.

I think that is probably a bogus reference. Notice there is only one reference which now goes to an expired domain page. If I remember right the reference was some dumb survival resource site that looked like it was just for getting traffic. that's the problem with wikipedia. I mean they use me as a resource on the hide glue page. I've read a lot of old glue books. They discuss sources of collagen and bone glue and chemistry and all kinds of stuff, but I can't ever recall any discussion of keratin as a source of glue. Find me a reference that is substantial. I don't think you'll find one. or if you glue something with your hair, let me know. :)

There actually is no reference on the wikipedia page for the making of hoof glue, the guy who wrote it either read it somewhere else, made it up, or found it out himself, but he sure didn't try to cite a source, the bastard. Is this the site you meant?survivewhatever.com/?p=104, yeah I do not see that as a solid source, although its method is a little different from the one on wikipedia. I did find another interesting reference to hoof glue on wikipedia which states that hoof glue is still used in woodworking, yet I can't find a single source of actual hoof glue for sale. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_glue#Hoof_glue I find it very unlikely I will find a more substantial reference for you, but that does not necessarily mean that the process does not work. Maybe you are right, but I am going to refrain from giving up and keep an open mind about this until I try and cook my own keratin glue, I just need to either buy some hydrochloric acid, or buy an elk tag since I have an abundance of the ticky bastards. I also need to regrow my hair since I burned it off yesterday. I am curious though, how old are the glue books you mention? By the way man, thank you for finally convincing me that culling living trees is actually worth it, before I stumbled across your channel looking for veg tan methods I was going to just let my 105 acres be out of control because I didn't want to kill any living trees. Now I am going to begin thinning my impenetrable forest which is so dense my dogs can't even penetrate most of it. Just the thinning I have already done has revealed some very interesting history, such as very old stumps that are larger than any of the trees that grow on my property now. I have a lot of respect for you man, you seem like a really cool dude with a lot of experience.

yeah, I think that is the site I remember seeing. I looked around before. I need to call this glue expert guy and talk to him about it. Most of these books are very old, I think early 20th century technical manuals, maybe the 20's. They are very technical though. Chemistry was well developed, not that I understand it. I barely made it out of high school and never took chemistry. Regardless of whether it works, collagen is one of the most abundant proteins in animals and it's so easy and so strong that there is hardly reason to mess with keratin unless it had some special property. Hide glue is wicked strong. It's often used weaker versions for less shrinkage and other characteristics. It can pull chips of glass off as it dries. I'm hoping to do some stuff on forestry and looking at the woods and where they are at, where they came from and where they are headed. Obviously if we leave them alone, they'll sort themselves out, but I think in most situations we can be a positive force if we look at quality of life and health, as well as diversity. Of course it depends on values and goals. I get the view that we shouldn't project our values and agenda on a natural system and not play god, but I don't think it really holds up to scrutiny or makes any sense when we can be a force to improve health and diversity. I think it's a good idea to have wilderness that runs itself more of less, but that isn't really where we are at and we can still guide that process a little in an area that's worked over and recovering. Pretty much almost everywhere is a mess from human activity. I'm looking forward to talking about all that stuff sometime.

Wow I had no idea hide glue was that strong, too bad it is hydrophilic like all protein adhesives :(. I would make some hide glue too if I had access to more collagen, which I might if I decide to purchase an elk tag. Still I am going to try and make some keratin glue as soon as I have enough hair to shave, not because it may be better than hide glue or more available, but instead because I will be able to gather actual information on whether keratin glue is possible or not. The lack of solid information on the subject is very peculiar and interesting to me. That would be pretty cool, the stuff you have already done on forestry is pretty interesting, I would like to know your thoughts on silviculture and possibly integrating food producing trees into a forests ecosystem. My propety's relatively recent history with people has really ruined where it is now sadly. I don't know if I will ever be able to repair the severely damaged parts of my land as generations of logging, stripping topsoil to make cranberry bogs, and allowing the invasive plant gorse to grow unmanaged in disturbed areas has left a lot of the land I have disastrously unhealthy. Still some of it is relatively healthy forest with native plant species, and I guess the gorse could be used for charcoal, if you can figure out how to cut the fuckers down without impaling yourself with hundreds of 1-5 inch spikes. The potential is there, for sure. I just need to work hard, and maybe the forest will thank me. You are right about just about everywhere being a mess, especially the midwest, but there are still some places that are pristine and undisturbed. Have you ever watched The Vedic Way? They live in southern Mexico, and have over a half foot of top soil on their land. The fact that they get cheap Mexican labour to do all the hard work on their property just adds insult to injury as well.