Pianotech

I hate throwing away unused hot hide glue. I tried freezing it, thawing, heating and using again. It worked just like it was supposed to and seemed to set and hold exactly the same. Are there long term drawbacks to this? I've also not had any in the freezer for more than a week or so. Thoughts

Tim,

I don't think you need to freeze it. I simply keep it in the fridge in a glass jar. When I need fast glue I just pop it into the glue pot (maybe a few seconds in the microwave first) and it's ready for action. 

Peter Grey Piano Doctor 

I don't know that much about hot glue but I have been told by more than one old timer that reheated hot glue looses a lot of its strength. Maybe that's a myth.

A couple of years ago, Vince Myralko wrote an article in the Journal about storing small amounts of high glue in the refrigerator. He restored them in a small double boiler and hot plate from he got from Lee Valley. He suggested it as a way to carry high glue easily to offsite appointments. I've been looking for the article but can't find it. If anybody knows what issues it's in I'd love to know.

I use 1/2 pint jelly jars to mix and store my hide glue.  I refrigerate batches but throw the batch away if it develops mold.  If I need high strength I would make a fresh batch, but for felts, hammers or most other parts a stored batch should be fine.

I remember as a young child going on jobs with my grandfather.  He had a stove made from a tin can that he set up with a candle in the bottom of uprights and added water to the correct consistency, but I don't remember him doing anything to store it, the glue just dried until the next use.  I can recall my dad buying him a real glue pot and stove to replace the tin can.

That was probably 60 years ago.

A few years ago, I did some experiments with left-over, refrigerated hide glue. I took some in a squeeze bottle and microwaved it for about 30 seconds or less, then used it to glued strips of felt to wood. I figured maybe I could travel with it and heat it in a customer's microwave. I was able to reheat the same batch up to about 10 times before my felt-wood test started to fail.

I never did take hide glue on the road (I have used fish glue though), but it was fun to experiment.

Thank you everyone, your comments are very informative as usual!