MIMF

The glue up starts around 3.30.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYGJdSEnLaw

Neat, but more work than it needs to be.

Bob Gramann wrote:Neat, but more work than it needs to be.

Yes, two minutes is too much work to join a top, but that's what it takes me too. I never got it down to less than that.

Tape it with one side propped at an angle. Turn it over. Run the HHG down the crack from a bottle with a nozzle. Drop it flat on the table. Go on to the next task.

Taping takes me more time than the method with wedges.

Everyone gets to waste time in their own unique way. Could be worse...he could be using Titebond and telling us just how wonderful that evil substance is...

Waiting for the vegan telling us how evil HHG is.

What? Waiting for the Vega telling us how evil the HHR is?

What is the purpose of running a flame along the joint?

Fiiiiiiish gluuuuuue!

In Romanillos' book about Torres, he talks about Torres wetting the top to rim joints with alcohol and lighting it to reactivate the glue. I learned a lot from that book. While I don't flame my joints, I do reheat them sometimes if I get a bad bond. That's just one of the reasons I like HHG.

You can do the same thing with an iron. Unclamp, iron, re-clamp, all the way around.

It amazes me how little heat will remelt HHG...a pass or two on a plate with my Milwaukee heat gun is all it takes. Would love to light stuff on fire, but my insurance carrier has enough heartburn with my usual practices .

Wow, I have been over thinking this task. That is way faster than building jigs and clamps.

I'm with Bob. This is WAY more complicated that it needs to be.
The real work is in getting the mating faces of the joint to be perfect. After that, any method that holds the faces together, and aligns them - with glue in between - will do.
Tape - for instance - work really well.
Or 4 nails in the bench with a wedge or 2 is about as fast as tape.

Yeah, but those methods do nothing for my pyro tendencies.

Chuck Tweedy wrote:Tape - for instance - work really well.
Or 4 nails in the bench with a wedge or 2 is about as fast as tape.

Good luck with re-heating a joint held by tape, or tucking away a bench (or several benches when joining a batch of tops).

I don't use, and wouldn't recommend a flame as heat source though. It's a bit like dodgy tablesaw practices which may go well for many years - until it goes wrong.

Marcus, I've never had to heat a top/back joint done with tape, because the method aligns the joint along its length and brings the faces together perfectly every time. There is plenty of time to adjust the tape by playing with the plates as a book prior to applying glue.
Once you apply the glue, it is seconds (as in 2 seconds) before the joint is closed, so there is no danger of the glue jelling. None.

And you can stack these very easily if you want to do a batch of glue-ups. With some stickers, I could do 100 easily in my shop - probably many more.

Do you know the method we are talking about??

There's the join quality issue - I tape for alignment and handling, and clamp to get an invisible glue line. I'll spend a few minutes more if it gets an invisible joint every time. When a student complains about not being able to find the joint on a joined and sanded plate that wants layout for rosette and bracing, it's a good thing. As a repair guy, I see way too many failed center joints on Taylors and a range of other higher quality instruments...I am guessing their owners would have paid a little more to avoid the issue.

taping - at least the way I do it - produces an invisible glue line. I can never find it on spruce.