"We also found out that linen stiffened with rabbit glue strikes dogs as in irresistibly tasty rabbit-flavored chew toy, and that our Labrador retriever should not be left alone with our research project."
Animal protein glues enjoy a lot of interesting uses to this day. One of the weirder ones is glue-chipped glass[0]. You roughen the surface of glass, spread hide glue with a high gram strength on it, and as the glue dries, it contracts, chipping out the glass leaving a neat texture. One has to be quite careful disposing of the glue/glass waste. Dogs will apparently eat that, to their considerable detriment.
Fish glue is also still available from luthier suppliers; it has a higher tack than hide glue.
My favorite glue for general woodworking is Old Brown Glue[1], which is a hide glue that's been modified to remain liquid at room temperature (it's still best applied warm though). It has a longer open time than hot hide glue (which is a gelatin at room temperature), while retaining all of the benefits of hide glues generally: reversability and low creep. For a neat demonstration of the reversability, I highly recommend his column veneering video [2].
I did a project with a large bent lamination, and I was looking into the modern adhesives people typically use. Unibond and epoxy both have pretty substantial health concerns. You don't typically use yellow glue (Titebond, etc) because they do have a lot of creep, which can lead to your lamination changing shape over time. I ended up using Old Brown Glue; it had enough open time to get the lamination in clamps. I'm happy to report that I'm still alive and all four legs of my dining room table still sit flat on the ground[3].
If you're not already familiar with it, here's a gem of a document called "Hide Glue in the Modern Workshop" [0].
I really like Old Brown Glue too, but shipping it from America is prohibitively expensive for me so I started cooking my own. My usual recipe is 0.2 parts urea, 1 part hide glue flakes, 1.5 parts water (by weight), heated to 60-70 degrees celsius, chilled rapidly, then heated again and chilled again (not sure why or if two heat and cooling cycles are necessary, but it works so I'm not trying to fix it). The result is indistinguishable from OBG.
I have also tried the "123" recipe of 1 part table salt, 2 parts glue flakes, 3 parts water (by volume) but it inhibits the gelling too much and the drying times are too long for my taste. However, it works better than the urea recipe in cooler temperatures.
I'll send an email to the address you have in your HN profile. Reply if you want to geek out about natural adhesives and woodworking in general.
Animal protein glues enjoy a lot of interesting uses to this day. One of the weirder ones is glue-chipped glass[0]. You roughen the surface of glass, spread hide glue with a high gram strength on it, and as the glue dries, it contracts, chipping out the glass leaving a neat texture. One has to be quite careful disposing of the glue/glass waste. Dogs will apparently eat that, to their considerable detriment.
Fish glue is also still available from luthier suppliers; it has a higher tack than hide glue.
My favorite glue for general woodworking is Old Brown Glue[1], which is a hide glue that's been modified to remain liquid at room temperature (it's still best applied warm though). It has a longer open time than hot hide glue (which is a gelatin at room temperature), while retaining all of the benefits of hide glues generally: reversability and low creep. For a neat demonstration of the reversability, I highly recommend his column veneering video [2].
I did a project with a large bent lamination, and I was looking into the modern adhesives people typically use. Unibond and epoxy both have pretty substantial health concerns. You don't typically use yellow glue (Titebond, etc) because they do have a lot of creep, which can lead to your lamination changing shape over time. I ended up using Old Brown Glue; it had enough open time to get the lamination in clamps. I'm happy to report that I'm still alive and all four legs of my dining room table still sit flat on the ground[3].
[0] https://letterheadsignsupply.com/how-to-glue-chip-glass-inst... N.B.: You shouldn't sandblast with sand because of the risk of silicosis.
[1] https://www.oldbrownglue.com
[2] https://www.oldbrownglue.com/index.php/articles/11-articles/...
[3] https://www.longwalkwoodworking.com/gatelegtable/