CA sanding slurry - a Painfully, painful lesson

[KKingery]

Just a short note on a painful lesson I learned tonight. I had started turning a dyed, stabalized BOB blank for a Gent Jr. The blank has some wicked holes in it, and I remembered seeing a post about using a CA sanding slurry technique to fill voids. I thought - what a perfect blank to try that on!

All was going well, until the sandpaper burned through. depositing a hot molten glob of CA on my finger! It took all of about 2 seconds for this to happen. The result? - A wicked burn.

I'm sure I missed something when I read about the idea of using a CA sanding slurry. This is in no way, anyone's fault BUT MY OWN.

I may have been sanding at too high a speed, or was using too much pressure on the paper or whatever. I just wanted to share this painful lesson for any newbie (or oldbie??)

I believe the technique worked, but I won't know for sure until tomorrow when the throbbing pain goes away and I return to the shop!

Just wanted to share this story, to hopefully prevent the same accident from happening to anyone else. - Thanks, Ken.

 

[Queso]

Ouch!

 

[Thumbs]

I thought you filled the hole with dust first then saturated it with thin CA. Sanding after it set. Were you mixing dust and CA on the fly?

 

[Old Griz]

Ken, I have done a bunch of BOW burls that had voids in them as I turned to size... I don't try to fill with sanding CA into the voids... I stop the lathe prior to final dimension and then drip medium CA into the void and give it a light spray of mild accellerator.. I do this to each void.. the CA will be proud of the void and you can take a light cut with your skew to bring it and the wood to final dimension...
Avoids CA burns and other nasty surprises... the CA will almost always blend into the color of the voids unless they are really big in which case I use some BOW sanding dust as a filler first.
There were 2 voids in this pen... one is fairly obvious (at least to a penturner, the customer never knew it)... the other isn't

 

[Thumbs]

Thanks, Griz! So many diffrent ways of doing things here. It's hard to remember them all! Nice fix, nice pen![]

 

[write-n-style]

Usually apply Ca with the lathe off for filling but have done it at slow speed with the lathe on.
The trick is knowing whether to use thin, medium, thick or gel CA.[]

 

[lkorn]

Hey Tom,
Is that an old or new photo? I like the background better than your postcards. And your Burl slab is present but, unobtrusive. I gues I inda like the overal effect better than the others. My $0.02.
Larry

 

[Daniel]

I use the ca while the lathe si turning and while sanding. this mixes the sawdust fron the sanpaper to the CA creating the Slurry.
lathe on it's lowest possible speed. keeping the CA wet by constantly adding more until I am satisfied the slurry has done it's job. letting the CA set while you are still working is not a good idea. I can see how it would tear a hole through the sandpaper real quick. and setting CA can get very hot.
I'm wondering if it was the CA itslef that burned through the sandpaper. I have seen it smoke before.

 

[Old Griz]

That is a newer one Larry... I kind of prefer it also... less busy.. more pen

 

[Ron in Drums PA]

On larger items, as in bowls and boxes, I would wet sand with an oil finish, (ie BLO, DO, Waterlox) and let the slurry fill in the gaps.

I tried this on a red oak pen recently. My big concern with red oak is that it has big open pores that would look like divots on a finished pen.

I filled in the pores with an oil slurry. I used Waterlox since it dries the fastest. I applied the oil while the lathe is spinning fast and add enough pressure until I see a little smoke. The wood will feel dry in about an hour and I applied a few coats of CA.

I’ll post a picture pen.

 

[rtparso]

Well I tried turning up the speed while sanding in CA today and I see what you meen about heat. As soon as the reaction started it took off and got real hot[]. I have a VS lathe so it is easy to turn it down real slow and I will keep it there. My fingers are still a little tender from the heat. Keep it slow!!!!