Adhesive recommendation for a sticky situation

Hello all.

I am starting construction of a stringed musical instrument, so I
need an adhesive that will

a) stick to jade, mating surfaces finished to a 180 or 220 grit
surface, and

b) be removable with heat, say in the range of 150-200 deg F.

standard practice dictates that the glue should be removable, in
case that repairs or tone adjustments are needed down the road.

any recommendations? I cannot use cyanoacrylics, nor can I use
epoxies. i do not want to use dop wax, due to cracking from thermal
expansion issues. shellac?

warm regards from Denver, Colorado, USA, soon to be cold

Mark Zirinsky
denver

Hi,

I... need an adhesive that will... a) stick to jade, 

Straight shellac would probably be too brittle to stand up to the
vibrations in a musical instrument. I would look at some of the low
temperature ‘hot melt’ adhesives or, if you can tolerate no heat at
all, I would make a mixture of shellac with rosin and, perhaps, even
a bit of beeswax for better flexibility - all dissolved in mineral
spirits and applied as a fairly stiff liquid. However, if you are
trying to consider future repairers removing the jade at some time,
they would normally only do so using heat as any kind of solvent
would normally ruin the surrounding wood/plastic etc. and so I can’t
really see why you couldn’t use just a little heat in the first
place… perhaps if you elaborated a bit on the exact problem I
could help more as I do a quite lot of musical instrument repairs to
brass and woodwind instruments…

Best wishes,
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK

Ian

thank you. Great job doing musical instrument repairs. I forgot, one
time I made a series of knobs for an oboe, if memory serves out of
old stock ivory.

jade is great for heat tolerance and thermal shock, you can even hit
with a hammer and forge over it if you need to.

that is exactly what i am doing leaving room for future repairs,
and/or tonal adjustments.

a) stick to jade, mating surfaces finished to a 180 or 220 grit
surface, and

b) be removable with heat, say in the range of 150-200 deg F. can
probably go up to 250 or 275 deg F if needed.

Have you used one or another of the hot melt adhesives with success?

warm regards
Mark Zirinsky, Denver

Hello Mark,

Try stewmac.com They are supply specialists for all types of
stringed instrument repair, building, and renovating. If they cannot
answer your questions regarding this, I would be very surprised.

Gail

Gail

Try stewmac.com They are supply specialists for all types of
stringed instrument repair, building, and renovating. 

thank you. As construction is of nephrite, I think that probably the
group here has more experience with gemstones than the traditional
repair places. however, their expertise will be useful later, when
making tonal adjustments, removing “wolf” tones and such.

Still need an adhesive. I would rather not bolt the soundbox
together if I can help it, although it can be done it is too tedious
to carve the threads into the jade.

Mark Zirinsky
denver

Hi Mark,

Have you used one or another of the hot melt adhesives with
success? 

Yes, I used to use just the normal stick hot melt as you would use
in a glue gun (Bostick or one of the generic industrial ones) but I
cut little bits off the stick and heated them in place either with a
small flame if they were on metal or a soldering iron if on wood.
Just recently I found

www.musicmedic.com and on this page http://tinyurl.com/yoz29w

they have a range of adhesives. I have just finished repadding a
couple of flutes using the little glue ‘pearls’ which seem to be
good. These are shellac based but I suspect that they may also
contain a bit of resin. The company seem good to deal with and I got
quick delivery even though I’m in the UK.

Best wishes,
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK

Ian

thank you, this looks very relevant. i will try on some test pieces,
cycle it through some temperature and humidly cycles, and if it hold
up, that is what I will use.

Cheers!
Mark Zirinsky
denver

Hi Mark,

Still need an adhesive. I would rather not bolt the soundbox
together if I can help it, although it can be done it is too
tedious to carve the threads into the jade. 

Now knowing this I doubt that any of the adhesives we have talked
about would hold up for long. In this situation, if you were going
for adhesive only, I would recommend you looking at the polyurethane
adhesives - something like ‘Gorilla glue’ which is obtainable from
woodworking suppliers or maybe one of the indutsrial structural
adhesives and not worrying too much about future repairs.
Alternatively, could you maybe create some form of mechanical
locking between the parts such as dovetail joints then one of the
‘harder’ adhesives might work.

Best wishes,
Ian
Ian W. Wright
Sheffield UK

Hey you guys 3M have all the adhesives you could wish for aand a few
fancy New ones glass to glass etc. UV curing etc. I saw them on a
trade show in port elizebeth South Africa. Try the web sites as well
www.3m.com. They are huge into the jewellry business as you can see
in most of the Catalogues

Regards
Frank Thomson (ex 3Mer )