STORING
Glue should be stored in a dry place. Barrels should not be unheaded prematurely, and after having been opened should be kept covered when not in use.
APPLYING GLUE
All surfaces to which glue is to be applied should be warm and dry. Hot glue will chill if applied to a cold surface, and if wood is being glued, moisture will have the effect of clogging the pores of the wood. Heat dries and expands the pores, allowing the glue-fibres to penetrate deeply, thus insuring perfect adhesion.
At the same time there is danger of getting wood too dry, making it absorb too much glue, and too speedily. This causes a very quick setting, and may result in “starving” the glue joint.
Some users on this account recommend adding a little moisture to the surface of stock, by steaming or by application of a little warm water. There is more or less uncertainty on this subject. As a general conclusion it is safe to say that stock must always be warm; surplus moisture must be expelled; no “green” stock must be used.
Here again, as in so many other problems of the glue-room, observation of results under actual conditions should be the guide to practice.
SECURING WORKERS’ CO-OPERATION
One more thing of extreme importance—the employer should do everything possible to secure the co-operation of every worker in the glue-room, from the foreman down, in using proper methods. A little personal interest here will be rewarded a thousand fold. Provide your workmen with proper equipment, which in itself encourages cleanliness, and show them how the quality of work may be improved.
Show them that an unclean, ill-smelling glue-pot is unnecessary. Show them that there is a right way, and a wrong way, to prepare glue—and the right way is the way to use. Introduce system into the glue-room, as into every other part of the plant.