Rice glue

[Bob Steinarsson]

Does anybody know anything about rice glue and how it works for woodwork or other guitar related glueing? 

[Roger Scrafford]

I've never used it, so I looked at wikipedia for a start:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rice_glue

In short: great for disassembly and repairability. But -- water soluble, of course, and probably not great for strenth. I'd use it for art stuff, but I doubt you'd be happy using it in a structural way.

[Bob Steinarsson]

I got the idea when I removed some rice residue from a stainless steel spoon. The residue was hard as hardened HHG and cold water did nothing to make it softer. I had to scrape it off with a knife. I did some research on the net and found the same as what Roger Scrafford writes here. I tried to make rice glue after recips on the net, but this glue did not work for wood. But I still wonder if there is a way to make a rice glue that works like the stuff on the spoon. Maybe rice bonds stronger to steel than it does to wood? 

[Roger Scrafford]

I had not thought of the rice residue issue, even though I cook a pot of rice — usually a short-grain white — three or four times a week. I use an anodized aluminum pot with a tight-fitting lid. No matter what kind of rice I do, this pot works perfectly with a volume ration of 1 rice to 1.5 water. The only variable is the time: 18 minutes for white, 55 minutes for brown.

Grains of the short-grain rice left in the pot stick tenaciously. But if I let the pot and the rice rest for about ten minutes, the rice no longer sticks to the pot.

So, what's happening in that ten minutes to ease the death grip the rice grains have on the pot? I do not know. And that means I will have to do some research and conduct some experiments.

[Bob Steinarsson]

Searching on the Internet has still not given me anything, so I will continue experimenting. Maybe we come up with a new super glue!

[Paul Breen]

Protein glues have been in use for 1,000's of years, I don't think there is much left to be discovered there. Animal protein glue has been a top pick for instrument fabrication for 100's of years. You can get many different gram strength offerings or more refined versions for better clarity. You know what you are getting and also the expected results. Animal protein glues have been extensively studied as well, you can find a lot of info on them with a Google search. I'm not trying to discourage your experimenting but you probably won't find much online about rice glue for instrument building.

If you want to build a Chinese or Japanese folding screen on the other hand, you may find some info on rice glue. I just built a frame for a local Japanese artist that made and painted a 6 foot by 12 foot folding screen. He mounted rice paper to 1/2" thick foam core board with traditional rice glue. I believe that this type of use, paper, fabric, was the primary application for rice glue. Maybe if you focus your research to traditional Chinese or Japanese fabrications you may find more.

[Bob Steinarsson]

I am a true lover of animal glue. I prefer fish glue to HHG because of the long open time, but I also use HHG. I am also curious. That means that I will always try new ways to do things, not necessarily because I think that I can improve them, it may just as well be because I want to understand how they work. And btw: This understanding will always be a necessity for improving things. If everybody through our pre-history had been satisfied with staus quo, we would still have been living in caves, and eaten each other. When I came on the thought of rice as glue, it was because of the hard residue after boiling the rice (see an earlier comment). Maybe there is a way to isolate this residue stuff. That's why I wrote my question in this forum where there is so much knowledge about glue. I have read a lot about rice and rice glue afterwards, but I still have no intensions in the direction of building folding screens. 

[Paul Breen]

I was rather sure that you would not be inspired to build a screen. I was just suggesting a different angle to try for your online research. Carry on!

[charley erck]

I have considered experimenting with slug slime, a substance I find very tenacious when fresh. This would seem to satisfy the criteria of being curious, trying new ways to improve things ,to, at least figuratively escape cave dwelling and cannibalism !