What is animal glue made of?
Dehydrated animal glue, or hide glue, is compounded using various grades of technical gelatin and has existed for centuries, with the first known written procedures of making hide glue dating to around 2000 BC. But contrary to popular belief, some animal glues no longer contain animal skin, tissue or bone as their primary ingredient, but instead use recycled gelatin as their primary ingredient. In the 1970s, LD Davis replaced the primary ingredient in our animal glues—extracted and boiled collagen from the hides of bovine and porcine—with recycled pharmaceutical and nutritional gelatin. This gelatin comes in the form of netting from soft gel nutrition capsules and ground hard pharmaceutical capsules and is combined with other raw materials to make our glues non-toxic and environmentally friendly. In addition to gelatin, common raw ingredients found in animal glues include water, Epsom salts, corn sugar and glycerin. Animal glues also contain two types of protein: chondrin, which provides glue strength for bonding potential, and gluten, which provides gelling strength for tackiness or hardness.
What is animal glue used for?
Animal glues are often used in the bookbinding, rigid box and graphic arts industries, among others. It can come in granular or cake form. This type of glue is often used to manufacture rigid boxes, like cell phone or perfume boxes, and must bond chipboard to a wide variety of substrates. Many manufacturers prefer to use LD Davis animal glues because they seek high-quality, eco-friendly, non-toxic, and recyclable glues to complete their projects.
Animal glue is commonly used with the following equipment:
- Perfect binder machines
- Crathern and S & S equipment
- Emmeci automatic box machine
- Hörauf BDM Universal equipment
- Potdevin Machine Co. equipment
- Sheridan Roll Feed Casemaker
- Stahl Casemaker
- Kolbus Casemaker
How is animal glue made?
To make animal glue in its cake form, the manufacturing process begins with obtaining the raw materials required and screening them for quality. After sorting, the materials are poured into a large mixing kettle, heated and mixed together. Once ready, the hot animal glue mixture is poured into large trays so the glue can dry or gel overnight. The manufacturing process continues by removing the gelled glue cakes from the trays by flipping them over. Quality control samples are taken of each glue batch and stored in our lab for future testing as required.
Are you looking to place an order or learn more about our animal glues?
Contact LD Davis today.
