COFFIN CASE LINING

[George Roberts]

I'm finally finishing up work on a small Bruno guitar.  It came in a nice coffin case, but with hideous orange (think orange sherbet) colored lining.  Most of the lining was loose, and very dirty, so I pulled it out and washed it.  Any advice as to gluing it back?  I was wishing I had one of those old bottles of LePage glue with the rubber snout that both released the glue and spread it.  Has anybody tried one of the glue sticks?

Thanks for the help, George

[Taffy Evans]

Hi, When I reline a case I cut out thin cardboard the shape of the top and bottom of the case. I then cut the covering material to the same shape but oversized to allow for the folding over the back of the card and/or the thickness of any padding.

I would then place the lining material down flat, place any padding on top of that, then the cardboard on top of that. The next step is to aply a glue of choice around the edge of the card and then pull the overlapping part of the lining towards the glue and secure it down onto the card. 

The glue I use is either contact cement, spray can or out of the tin, or hot hide glue. Pull the overlapping material so the if is the same shape as the cardboard and fits into the case.

I then do the same for the sides of the case and glue those strips into the case. This hides any misfitting of the top and back lining.

Here is one I did some time ago. Cheers Taff.

[George Roberts]

Taff,

Thanks for the help.  I like the idea of the cardboard pattern.  May have a small trial run with a glue stick.  I'm pretty sure that they probably used hot hide glue originally, but it sounds like a mess waiting to happen.

George

[Taffy Evans]

Hi George, I find that contact-type adhesive is messier than HHG, and depending on the size of the area being glued I find stick glue coverage a bit limiting at times. A test run is a good idea, I am sure I could make hot stick glue work.

Good luck Taff.

[Greg Mirken]

Doubtless that old case was built with hide glue, and deserves to be restored with the same. If someone had used contact cement on it at some point, you wouldn’t be able to re-install the original lining.

Greg Mirken

[George Roberts]

Greg, you sound like my dad.  He was always a stickler for keeping things as original as possible.  He even had a set of antique peapod drills, so that if in the future somebody looked in a hole he had drilled, they would see the age appropriate curl at the bottom. 

I will go with the hide glue.

George

[George Roberts]

In the FWIW category.  The old glue marks showed that only about 1 inch of glue was applied along the edges. Also, for those old enough to remember, Life Magazine had ads showing a guy in a shirt that was way too small, and it was to make sure we bought cotton shirts that were "Sanforized".  Sanforization was invented in 1930, as a way to keep cotton from shrinking when washed.  Well, the lining of the coffin case predated that, and when I washed and dried it, it did shrink.

The hot hide glue worked very well.  I kept it on the thin side.

Some pictures:

[George Roberts]

More pictures.

[George Roberts]

The first picture is a spot I missed, to show how grungy the ling was to begin with.

The last picture is Bruno resting in peace.  When I got Bruno, he was resting in pieces.

[Taffy Evans]

Hi, that all looks good for many more years to come.

Taff