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Hello ,conga members i need some advice i want to reglue some old congastaves.
And i want to use the steardys, thickest glue i can use that becomes harder than the wood itself.

Isla congas have a tan, thick glue like lines on the inside, that is a very steardy material i would like to know if any of you know what they might use.
Also if you look inside gon bops, old school congas you can see a brown hard,buble like thick glue lines on the saves to prevent cracks where the staves meet.

I want to put thick lines of reinforcement glue,on the stave's to prevent age cracking where the staves meet, since the original glue, over age almost gone, as it was mostly absorbed by the wood.

I would like to know whats the puddy/glue like material used on Islas ,or on bops.

I am looking for some glue that is thcik, and dosnt drip so fast.

Your help will be appreciated. Thanks

Mario(Isla) uses regular wood glue(titebond III?) mixed in with some of the wood shaving/dust mixed in.

Not sure what GB used, but it wasn't very good.

You can also try epoxy. Just do a test run to see how much hardener you would prefer.


T

Titebond III ranked very high in a failure-test article in Fine Woodworking last summer, wherin many types of glue were tested. in fact, I think it came out on top. That's what I'd try.

I believe the best answer to your question is - "It depends!" I know, from experience, that repairing a bad, repair is harder than doing a good repair, so it is good to get it right the first time. A problem with a repair of an old staved instrument often is that there is dirt or old glue in the crack between the staves that has to be cleaned out first. If you clean it out well, and get down to fresh wood, you could indeed get a glue bond that is stronger than the wood. However, you may then have stress on the entire shell that could eventually cause other staves to separate or worse, to cause a split in one of the staves. Repairs of cracks in fine vintage instruments like violins or cellos is often done by first cleaning the crack and then gluing a thin piece of wood. or shim, into the crack. As reported here, Titebond is considered the "best" but there are times when a penetrating epoxy or even an expanding glue like Gorilla Glue are a better choice. It depends.

I repaired the fully disassembled staves of my LP mahogany bongó with
white glue which was thicker than Titebond III and therefore easier to handle in
this situation. Many German conga makers use this glue type to assemble staves too.
Cracks can be mended very well with Titebond III though.

Hello all !!!

I think a lot of glues can do the job when the join between the two staves is good. But I think Titebond is very good !!!...

Galou.