I use alcohol - I learned the trick on a course I did in piano repair. Very effective! The downside is that it could hurt the finish - especially if it's a French polish. Ordinary methylated spirit works just fine.
Bill From: Herbert Ward <wa...@physics.utexas.edu> To: lute@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Tuesday, 31 January 2012, 16:31 Subject: [LUTE] Alcohol as glue breaker. I asked a luthier how he broke the glue joint in doing a repair. I expected to hear a description of some variation of wet heat. To my surprise, he said that he used anhydrous ethyl alcohol (eg, 190 proof Everclear liquor). He said that the alcohol drawa all the water out of the glue, and that perfectly dry glue has no strength and comes apart easily. Does anyone else use alcohol? Why do some luthiers use alcohol and others use wet heat? To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
