Fish Glue Annotation Plan
Casa (Xinguo) Wang
(as of March 2017)
Goals:
- To create a usable Fish Glue according to the instructions in MS Fr. 640 and referencing contemporary sources (Cennino Cennini).
- To gain a hands-on understanding of the role of adhesives in the Manuscript, and explore the strengths, weaknesses, and difficulties of production.
Recipes to be used: fol. 7r_a4 (Ms. Fr. 640), and Fish Glue recipe from Cennino Cennini
Recipe #1
(fol. 7r_a4 from Ms. Fr. 640)
<id>p007r_a4</id>
<head><m><al>Fish</al> glue</m> or <m>usblac</m> and <m>mouth glue</m></head>
<ab>It is made from <m><al>codfish</al> skin</m> that has been boiled rather than <m>salted</m>. <pro>Joiners</pro> use it on their masterpieces and <pro>guitar makers</pro> use it for their more delicate works. It needs to be strongly whipped, then soaked gently in barely boiling <m>water</m>.</ab>
<ab><m>Mouth glue</m> is made of <m>parchment</m> scraps and used to glue <m>paper</m> or similar things without fire, by wetting it with one's <tl> <bp>mouth</bp></tl>.</ab>
<ab>
<margin>left-bottom</margin>
It is whipped and left to soak in <m>white wine</m> for one night, then melted over a low heat. Others soak it in <m>spirits</m>.</ab> </div>
Recipe #2
(from The Craftsman's Handbook "Il Libro dell'Arte" by Cennino Cennini)
How Fish Glue is Used, and How it is Tempered (Chapter CVIII)
There is a glue which is known as fish glue. This glue is made from various kinds of fish. If you put the little piece, or leaf, in your mouth, just as it is, until it gets a little wet, and rub it on sheep parchments or other parchments, this fastens them together very securely. To dissolve it,...It is good and excellent for mending lutes and other fine paper, wooden, or bone objects. When you put it on the fire, put in half a goblet of clear water for each leaf.
Materials:
- Codfish skin
- Water (Clear water?)
- Parchment scraps (*In Lab Inventory*)
- White Wine
- Spirits (What kind? Potentially in Lab Inventory)
- Boiling vessel
- Contemporary Fish Glue (For comparison) (*in Lab Inventory*)
6. Eventually, before you start experiments, you will determine whether you need a safety protocol, and you will formulate one based on the __Safety and Workflow template__. Your document should describe your workflow, and what safety measures you will need to take. Upload it into the folder labelled __Safety - Workflow and Protocol__. Your file in this folder should be linked to in your Wiki field notes.
(as of April 2017)
Reconstruction Experiments: (1) Unsalted Codfish Skin, (2) Air Bladder Membrane, (3) Air Bladder
Experiment 1
Making fish glue using unsalted codfish skin according to the recipe on fol. 7r
4.4.2017
I bought an Atlantic codfish weighing 3lbs in Dahing Seafood Market in Chinatown (127 Mott St. New York, NY). The fishmonger removed the scales and cut the skin off for me.
I froze the two pieces of fish skin in the freezer until Apr. 20th. Figure 1.
4.20.2017
I took out the frozen fish skins and left them at room temperature to thaw.
When it was defrosted, I washed the skins inside and out with tap water to clean off the meat residue and any remaining fish scales.
Then I left the clean skins at room temperature overnight (about 10 hours); at the end of this process, it was dried thoroughly.
I cut the skins into small pieces (about half inch pieces) in preparation to boil them later. Figure 2 and 3.
4.26.2017
The weight of the fish skin pieces was 15g. I then boiled the fish skin pieces in an iron pot filled with about 2000ml tap water.
Using a gas stove, I heated the water on the highest setting to bring the water and skins to a boil (approximately no more than five minutes at a strong boil); then I turned the stove's setting down to a low fire to simmer the skins (8 hours total, see below). My reason for deciding to use a low fire was to not boil the water away too quickly, because my hypothesis was that if this was boiled too quickly, the skins would not be fully dissolved or thick enough.
Process in summary:
- I cooked the fish skins on low fire for 8 hours (until the water became yellowish, and only a little of the water remained; i.e., enough to cover the bottom of the iron pot).
- Then I filtered the glue with a kitchen sieve into a china bowl (this type of bowl is heat resistant).
- I heated the glue in this bowl in the gas oven at 300 F degree for approximately 40 mins.; during this time about a quarter of the remaining water boiled away.
- I removed the bowl with the glue in it from the over; I poured out the glue onto a sheet of [tin? aluminum?] foil; and left the glue on this foil at room temperature to cool, which took around 14 hours to completely cool and to set. Figure 4 and 5.
Experiment 2
Making fish glue using the air bladder membrane of a fish (species unknown); recipe designed by Casa Wang
4.29.2017
I was inspired to design this experiment from a YouTube video
called "title" [URL], which shows a process for makign fish glue from air bladder membranes.
My Process:
I removed the air bladder membrane, and left the membrane and air bladder to dry out at room temperature. Figure 6 and 7.
5.2.2017
I cut up the membrane into half inch pieces, and cooked it as before (see Experiment 1).
Results:
The glue that I made from this membrane is clearer than the cod fish skin glue that I made in Experiment 1; this glue is almost transparent. Figure 8.
The author-practitioner mentioned strength and clearness of the glues for certain projects in the manuscript. But it is not clear that his references to "strong glue" is fish glue, or fish glue that is made from fish skin.
My Thoughts on the fish glue recipe in fol. 7r:
For the other references to very clear or very strong glue mentioned in the manuscript
[fols.???], it could be made from fish skin or air bladder, though in fol. 7r the author-practitioner only describes fish glue and mouth glue that are made of fish skin and meat. It doesn’t mean that he has no idea about stronger and clearer adhesives, but for some reason he talks about fish glue in detail.
The author-practitioner gives the recipe for making fish glue at the beginning of the manuscript, and he gives tips about how to use fish glue in delicate works in different recipes
[examples]. There are no clues that the fish glue mentioned in these different recipes is the one made of codfish skin.
Thus, it is could be helpful to reconstruct some other fish glues with different parts of fish such as air bladder and the skin of air bladder, to see the possibilities about the strength and clearness of adhesives used in the manuscript, and by contemporary artisans.
It is very interesting that the practitioner on YouTube
[provide URL] does not talk about the air bladder membrane, and I am not even sure that he is using the actual membrane from the air bladder. But when I was doing this experiment, I washed the air bladder, and I noticed that its membrane separated easily from the rest of the bladder, which is why I noticed these two parts of the fish air bladder (I didn't know about this before). I decided to use this membrane because it appeared to me upon handling it that it was very flexible and strong, and so I guessed that it contained a lot of gelatin, and so it seemed to be a good material to me for making fish glue.
5.4.2017
The air bladder (inner part) is still not totally dry yet, it may need one more day. Then I will cook the air bladder in the same way as experiment 1 to make fish glue. I am curious to see what the result will be, because I now have two different kinds of glue (the codfish unsalted skin, and the air bladder membrane) to compare this particular with the actual air bladder to.