Japanese rice glue recipe - clear, reversible, and tasty

[Bob Blarney]

This might be worth trying out.  It's not a failure so long as you can eat the leftovers.

 

http://islandblacksmith.ca/2015/10/making-sokui-rice-paste-glue/

[peveka]

Aaaah that's why the Admiral sometimes serves it for dessert (with cinnamon and raisins).

She just wants to shut me up. Thanks for sharing!

Cheers

Pieter

[bruce d]

An organic glue. My bio-concious neighbours need to hear about this, I am sure they will use it.

Thanks.

[druxey]

This glue is used in paper conservation as it is also pH neutral as well as reversible.

[vaddoc]

Very interesting. I faintly remember, as a little boy, my older cousin making a large paper kite using a mixture of flour and water as glue.

[vossiewulf]

11 hours ago, bruce d said:

An organic glue. My bio-concious neighbours need to hear about this, I am sure they will use it.

Thanks.

Keep in mind that although it's fairly strong, rice glue will still fail before the wood, and western joinery generally assumes the glue is stronger than the wood. If you look at traditional Japanese joinery, in general it is much more complex than western, and usually includes one or more mechanical interlocking features so the joint will have the full failure strength of the wood.

 

However, that's only applicable to building furniture or anything else that will take significant stresses. I see no reason why it wouldn't be an excellent ship modeling glue for those who generally use PVA, at least for anything besides the hull planking.

Edited May 28, 2019 by vossiewulf

[bruce d]

6 hours ago, vossiewulf said:

However, that's only applicable to building furniture or anything else that will take significant stresses.

They are building a house. What could go wrong?

Joking aside, since the original post I have found this glue is used in some furniture restoration where they know there is a possibility the repair will be taken apart in the future.

[wefalck]

Starch-glue, in Europe based on wheat, rather than rice, once was commonly used in all sorts of paper-craft and book-binding. As druxey noted, it is still used in book restoration and other kind of paper restoration, as the joints are reversible by soaking.

 

The inconvenience in its use is that it needs to be freshly prepared, as it will go mouldy after a couple of days or so, depending on the environment. Also, the items glued have to be kept dry, not only because of a possible failure of the joint, but to prevent them from becoming mouldy. There are starch-based glues on the market, that have fungicides in the formula.

 

As a note: the parboiled rice that is very popular with housewives wouldn't work very well for preparing the paste, as the starch that makes the grains stick together has been washed off.

 

I don't think there would be much use for starch-glue in ship modelling. We tend to rely too much on the glue for keeping pieces together, without any mechanical interlocking. Also, the glued surfaces are too small for the size of the pieces and the possible force on the joint. Starch-glue works well for any kind of laminating work, e.g. paper on wood or cardboard, where the glued surface is large compared to the size of the parts. Once could use it also for dowelling work, to prevent dowels from falling out of holes.

 

 

[Dziadeczek]

This reminds me of old casein glue, which I used to homemake ages ago for building paper models.

https://hubpages.com/art/woodworking-how-to-make-your-own-strong-wood-glue-from-milk

It is surprisingly long lasting and strong (read about its uses in the article), cheap, easy to make and, unlike rice glue, water resistant.

[Maddy]

I have made a batch using a vacuum sealed bag in my sous vide. Easy, no stirring. Also it's kept well in the fridge for a week so far. Just trimmed a corner to squeeze it out as needed. Glue / Sauce thickener.  I was wondering if I could use it with paper as a mask on a painting ( oil) and wash the mask off after?