John in NM
I love the top!

I've never tried fish glue, though I use hide glue often enough. I like it better than PVA because it seems to be more slippery during assembly, though the open time is shorter with hot hide glue I think. My projects that require glue tend to be small these days, so I have started freezing the excess hide glue (the chest freezer lives in my shop) in little syringe applicators or 2 oz squeeze bottles I got from Amazon. Works really well so far.

I'm starting to like shellac too. I never cared much for dewaxed, but I bought some button lac for a project that needed it's color and that stuff is really easy to use. I may revisit dewaxed for a topcoat over the button at this rate.