Wood Case Repair

[MiBrassFS]

The 1959 Holton 340 BBb here lives in its original old school, giant, wood hard case. Along one edge it has a bit of wear and has opened. I’m thinking epoxy might be the answer, but there’s also some pretty good wood specific glues. Those typically depend upon certain types of wood to wood contact joints. This might not meet that criteria. Another option might be something along the lines of a construction adhesive like “Liquid Nails.”

I’ll keep the class posted…

Clipboard Nov 24, 2024 at 9.44 AM.jpeg (44.1 KiB) Viewed 357 times

[the elephant]

Titebond III if you ever exect to have to set it down on the pavement on a rainy day. It is waterproof. Titebond II if it *might* get a little wet, as it is water resistant. Titebond Original is NOT safe to get wet.

I really like Titebond III on plywood cases.

Wade

[MiBrassFS]

Thanks for that! Titebond 3 looks very promising. Looks easy to use, too.

[bloke]

I agree with Wade.

Titebond carpenter glue products are excellent/superior, and I actually used them when adding a log room onto my log house. I did my best to cut out the semicircles where the logs overlap at the corners using a Sawzall, but - alas - I don't have the skill to cut perfect 8 inch semicircles as can a machine at a factory that precuts those into the logs. I actually mixed up Titebond Ii with a bunch of sawdust from the logs, and used it as a caulk to fill up the little imperfections in my semicircles. It's absolutely unnoticeable, and Titebond II does NOT claim to be absolutely waterproof - as does Titebond III, but it has held up for years against torrential rains with no sign of failure on the outside of this house.

(Yeah I had to do this addition about 50% all by myself and about 50% with skilled people helping me who had never worked on a log house before, because I couldn't find anyone who had ever worked on a log house before. It was quite an experience. I'm sort of proud that it doesn't look like an addition... and it even keeps the rain out.)

I like the consistency of II better than III, but I don't see how consistency would matter with a seam that's only a quarter inch wide, and I would say with certainty that it will hold for more years than you will be walking on the earth. The completely waterproof promise of III is a salient feature.

I would discourage you from considering recovering the entire case with new tolex. There are lots of threads on lots of websites all over the Internet about people struggling to find a glue that actually holds that stuff effectively to Wood, and people who do so successfully talking about all the trouble they have to go to to get it to do so.

Those vintage shaped wood cases are absolutely worth fixing. They were made in the USA rather than Costa Rica, they are 100% plywood with no particle board, they actually fit the 6/4 Holton instruments, and there's nothing that's for sale today that is a hard case which is that compact. Had I planned on keeping one of the 345 instruments that I've owned, I would have never sold the one of those cases that I previously owned.

I'm sure that once you get everything stabilized with that excellent glue, you'll go back with Bondo and fix the missing places. If they're small enough, I'm sure you know that you can just go with Bondo, but I might be tempted to use a little piece of fiberglass cloth for the span that I see in your picture. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. You also already know that there's a Bondo product that's supposed to be designed for wood that gives a little bit more than the stuff that is designed for cars. Whatever on that. If you already have some regular Bondo, I wouldn't go out and buy the wood friendly product.

[MiBrassFS]

Good advice, me thinks. Not sure what I’ll do in the bare, missing Tolex areas. It might just get painted flat black unless I can score a bit of Tolex. These do fit really well. It’s like a giant “French” style case, too, so it’s big, but as small as practical.

[bloke]

You can find smaller amounts of tolex on eBay for sale fairly often, and the crappy cheap kind which is found on those cases is something I've found on eBay. The plastic type that you find on guitar amplifiers is even more difficult to cement to wood. I think I would suggest satin black paint rather than flat if that's the way you're going to go, and I have also discovered that if paint gets under the edges of reglued tolex, it tends to unglue it, so you might consider spraying the flat black into a dish or something and dabbing it around the edges and spraying away from the edges.

The following is something I've never tried, but here's an experiment: that zinc paint (that you can use to re-coat your gas pipes outdoors and sheet metal where the zinc coating has failed) will build up a thickness quite easily and is very run resistant. With some creative masking, I'm wondering if you could build up the wood up to the thickness of the surrounding reglued tolex, and then cover the zinc paint with satin black. It might be a stupid suggestion or it might be a genius suggestion. Good luck, if you try it.

[MiBrassFS]

I returned the epoxy I bought a few weeks ago and bought some Titebond 3 at the Home Despot. I went over to Harbor Freight a picked up some cheapo bar clamps. I figure why pay $40 for cheapo Chinese bar clamps at HD when I can buy cheapo Chinese bar clamps for $7 at HF. I also picked up a pack of flux brushes to apply the Titebond 3 with at the “dollar” store. The “dollar” store, where everything is now $1.25. What’s up with that?

[bloke]

I returned the epoxy I bought a few weeks ago and bought some Titebond 3 at the Home Despot. I went over to Harbor Freight a picked up some cheapo bar clamps. I figure why pay $40 for cheapo Chinese bar clamps at HD when I can buy cheapo Chinese bar clamps for $7 at HF. I also picked up a pack of flux brushes to apply the Titebond 3 with at the “dollar” store. The “dollar” store, where everything is now $1.25. What’s up with that?

Most everything else costs 2X verses pre-shutdown...so 1.25X is better than most.

We're paying nearly 90 cents/lb. for 45 cents/lb. ten lb. bags of chicken thigh quarters (beef...?? Forget it. I'm shooting deer...Beef is the new Persian caviar.)
gas...?? OK, around here, a bunch of it is down to $2.70 (Mississippi...some for $2.45...too far for me, unless doing pick-ups/deliveries), but that's still roughly double $1.45.
orange man? I just don't know if he will be allowed to even try to clean up all the horrible messes (regardless of whether he has any good strategies)...messes EVEN WORSE than found on my workbench.