Traditional hide glue was prepared in Glue Pots.  Hide glue is used in making violins for a variety of reasons, don’t take your violin to anyone who doesn’t use traditional glues they could seriously damage your instrument.  Read more about hide glue here.

Before the 20th century and the advent of PV glue, glue pots used to be as common as frying pans.  I found this typical old glue pot and decided to fix it up.  At one point it may have been enameled, this prevented rust from coloring the glue.  I won’t use the glue pot for my own work, but I like to have a 100+ year old glue pot on the shelf to put things in perspective.

The pot is cast iron, I removed the rust by soaking in vinegar (this will etch the surface and would cause visible damage if the surface were polished, but this pot won’t notice).  I then ‘seasoned’ it with olive oil like you would a cast iron pan.  You can see the final result at the top of the post.  It turned out quite nice I think.

Lee Valley now sells a small stainless steel pot replica which would work well if you like the traditional look and feel.  It can be used with a small electric hot plate or coffee cup warmer which they also sell.