Rabbit Skin Glue

[petertay15]

A friend dropped off a guitar because the fret board was getting loose. Rather than do it myself (which I could have, thanks to demos on YouTube), I asked a luthier if he would fix it. He did, saying he used rabbit skin glue. Do you use rabbit skin glue? If so, what for?

[EricU]

Rabbit hide glue is supposed to be really good.  I have never used it.  Basically, it's the same as using any hide glue.

I expect it's more expensive than generic hide glue, but luthiers use it.  Mostly the people that build violins

[Cooler]

Rabbit skin glue is used to make gesso for priming oil painting canvas.  It shrinks the canvas as it dries to make it very tight (an advantage).

It is also use for sizing for gold leaf gilding.  The rabbit skin glue is mixed with chalk to make a smooth surface for the gold leaf.  

According to WIKI:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit-skin_glue

Adhesive[edit]
As an adhesive, Rabbit-skin glue is used in the production of the bellows of concertinas, and in other smaller, light instruments—prominently in violins. Its supreme advantages are very fast bonding; and easy debonding with hot water if an instrument must be disassembled for internal repairs. It also has very low creep, which is the tendency of some glues to plastically yield under even low but consistent stresses over time. For example, guitar bridges are subject to high lateral stresses that with the wrong glue can lead it to creep forward.
The proteins of the glue soak into the wood and interlace with its pores. Setting of the glue occurs with cooling and drying, so the working time is very short, on the order of minutes, to stick the parts together and get full strength, unlike PVA glue which might provide 20–30 minutes. Furthermore, since the glue only works by microscopically stitching the wood fibers together, any gaps in the joint are not going to be successfully filled, and so the mating surface must be very smooth.

[Rob Young]

Keeping the skin attached to your rabbet?

[EricU]

I just checked to see where you could get it.  Apparently the fact that artists use it to size canvases means that it's not that expensive.  It might actually be easier to get than regular hide glue if there is a decent art store in town.  Are there giant bunny farms out there raising bunnies for their skins?