I’ve been thinking about easy to get/make alternatives to noriko glue for when I attempt re-skinning my own nagauta shamisen and I’ve been wondering if anybody’s tried using garden variety wallpaper paste from a hardware store.
Could it damage the dou? Is is strong enough? Is it easy to remove?
Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to the Bachido Forum, Laura! Forgive my late greetings! 
Interesting idea! I don’t think it would damage the dou. I’m not sure if it’s strong enough, but there’s no better way to find out than try!
Has anyone else here worked with wallpaper paste? Do you think it’s strong enough?
I don’t want to test it out on the shamisen since I’ve read that sometimes the paste can leave residue that makes it difficult to prime walls again afterwards and the last thing I’ll want is to complicate things if it doesn’t work out and makes it so the noriko glue doesn’t stick either.
But I guess I could get a piece of varnished wood, apply the paste and see what can clean the residue off best or maybe even test how much tugging it would take to unstick it once it’s dried after two/three days. Some mixes are stronger and some are more water soluable than others so I’ll need a good amount for the experiments.
I want to try out a few possible synthetic alternatives to skin as well so I can kill two birds and test both out.
Thanks for the welcome. I’ve been wanting to get on the site since I first found out about it so I’m definitely glad I bit the bullet.
I have trued fiberskyn from western bass drum, plastic glue, epoxy, super glue would not stick . ended up nailing it with small furniture tacks. Looked tacky but sounded ok, the original plastic skin I took off had a fine weave matting attached to it and then that is what appeared to be glued to wood.
Have just tried pva which has worked on dry calf skin.worst case residues can be removed with blade or sandpaper so if you have no choices and its going to get you practising try anything.
I like your wallpaper paste idea. Will try sometime
I kinda don’t wanna wreck my Shamisen considering it’s “vintage”, I don’t have much money to get a replacement and shipping takes forever. I want to make sure something works before I try anything that could damage the main structure.
Hi Laura welcome to Bachido!
I have been skinning shamisen for a while now for lots of ppl and I have never had a problem using the nori recipe in Kyle’s book.
It’s super easy very cheap and goes a long way. It is also super strong for being flour and water and does not damage the wood. I think it’s always best to go with the tried and true.
If you don’t have Kyle’s book let me know and I’ll give you the recipe and I’ll even send you some rice flour I have tons of it.
I’ve been considering getting the book for a while so I think I’ll order it sometime. Not until after I get my instrument and the skin material, though. Probably as a bulk order with a bachi considering that’s what I’ll need next.
And I know that tried and true is good, but considering I’m not using natural skin either (I’ve been looking at vinyl synthetic snakeskin, latex rubber sheets, remo drum heads and others) , I’m not sure how well nori will work. Plus it’ll require more time and effort to prepare it in a very small kitchen with heavy traffic (five people in a galley kitchen barely wide enough for one at mealtimes is HELL! lol) than having a tub of something ready-made that I’ve already got in abundance and can prepare outside and out of the way.
I might still take up the offer of the recipe if things don’t work out with the paste. But rice flour is pretty easy for me to come by here. I’d probably be drowning in the stuff if I was learning how to make mocchi.
Thanks, anyway for both the offer and the welcome.
This is WAY outside of my wheelhouse, but I wonder if some of the Hide glues from Luthier supply houses might be another alternative. Great, I’ve thrown out another question in lieu of having anything like an answer to Laura’s question.