Made of rendered-down animal hides (fish glue and isinglass glue are similar; bone glue is the same collagen base, although somewhat inferior), hide glue is the first choice for musical instrument makers, antique conservators and traditional woodworkers.

Having a modulus of eruption slightly less than epoxy, its only “drawback” is that it is not waterproof. This is usually not a problem when it comes to furniture. If you are worried about a failed glue joint because of moisture, the first thing you need to worry about is your furniture floating away.

Almost all of the furniture I have made over the past 35 years has never got that wet.  Hide glue has so many more benefits that make it the best woodworking adhesive ever!

Although it is more expensive than modern glues and that is why it was replaced, it is still far superior.  If you have ever used hide glue, then I am preaching to the choir.

Hide glue shrinks as it dries and does not suffer from “creep.” It is largely transparent to stains and finishes. It can be cleaned up any time after it is applied or dried! It washes out of clothing and rags and, more importantly, it is reversible and easily repaired. The swarf does not clog tools or sandpaper. If you make a mistake, heat it to 145º and it becomes thermoplastic and can be disassembled or repositioned.

You can easily do “rub joints” without clamps by applying hide glue to both edges of properly joined boards and rub them together, leave them, and the next day they will be tightly joined. Hammer veneering — laying veneer without clamps — is also accomplished with hide glue.

Give this glue a chance.

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Simple: you make your workbench a full-length shooting board. All you have to do is have a piece of wood one-half inch or three-quarter inch thick as long as the board you need to plane and wide enough to support the board. The piece of wood is placed on the bench, the stuff to be planed placed on top — projecting out one-quarter or so and clamped in place at the ends with clamps (or with holdfasts or other clamping devices as appropriate).

A long jack or joiner plane is then run on its side along the bench as the base of the shooting board (bench). The piece of wood elevates the stuff being shot, and the clamps act as the stop on a regular shooting board.

The edge of your board will be square. With such a long board, either a long straightedge or string line will be necessary to determine if it is straight. The longer the plane, the truer the board will be. But on such a long board, it is necessary to “squint the joint” (get down and sight the board) to determine if it is straight.

So your only attention needs to be getting it straight, as the shooting bench will always plane a square edge. Your body of the plane needs to be square and the iron set square as well to insure that the final cut will be square.

This also helps in reducing the ends that tend to be rounded off and the boards planed with a belly. A shooting board or shooting bench will eliminate that problem.

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