Hide Glue
article Hide Glue - by Zach Etheridge
Veneering may be the best of all hide glue applications. You can get veneers down on flat or contoured edges and surfaces without worrying about perfect placement as you must with contact cement. You can create perfect butt joints by cutting them after the veneers are down, you can repair bubbles easily and positively, and you can do the whole job without clamps. Veneering with hide glue may be doing yourself or your customers a favor in more ways than one. When a piece of furniture suffers damage that calls for repairing or replacing some of the veneer, the owner or repair specialist can simply iron a damp towel on the veneer, melting the glue and allowing easy removal of the entire piece.
Tage claims that with a household iron, an adequate supply of veneer, a large enough glue pot and a veneer hammer, you could veneer the entire planet. The veneer hammer looks like a cross between a hammer and a squeegee; the hammer head is used as a hand hold (and for setting veneer pins), and the smoothly blunted blade is used to press the veneer down firmly and squeeze out excess glue. Edges usually can be done hot; large surfaces may be done at your leisure, reheating the glue with an iron set between wool and cotton on the heat dial. The hammer veneering process is covered in clear detail in the book Tage Frid Teaches