In these days of preparedness it is easier to buy ready made glue than it is to make it yourself; moreover it is just about as cheap, nearly as good and certainly far less trouble.

If you insist on making your own glue though, you must, first of all, have a glue-pot of the right kind to make it in. As I have already mentioned a glue-pot is made of two pots one inside the other. The outside pot is half filled with water and the inside one contains the glue.

You can improvise a glue-pot by using a tomato can for the outside pot and a pepper or mustard can for the inside pot. While it won't look quite as shoplike as the kind you buy it will work just as well.

How to Make Good Glue and How to Use It

To make a wood-filler, melt I ounce of white resin and I ounce of yellow wax in a pan and add enough ochre, which can be had in any color, to give it the color of the wood you are using. Stir it well and fill the dent while hot. This filler sticks well to the wood and when dry is very hard make good glue, put some small pieces of genuine Peter Cooper or imported French Coignet glue into the inside glue pot in enough water to cover it. The outer pot is set on a fire and the water in it is brought to a boil. Stir the glue until it is all melted, when it should be about as thick as sewing machine oil. Skim off the scum that forms when the glue is boiling.

In using home-made glue have it very hot, for the hotter it is the stronger the joint it will make; further put it on both surfaces of the wood to be glued together very thinly as this also tends to make it stick tighter.