Epoxy help

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skamrath1

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Jun 17, 2012
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Duncan, Oklahoma
Ok so I switched from CA to epoxy to adhere the brass tubes in the blanks and out of 4 pens 2 of the tubes came lose. Is there a secret in doing this?
 
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Aug 25, 2011
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Nashville, TN
Make sure that you sand the tube good and then with a small dowell coat the inside of the blank with the epoxy then take the tube and get epoxy on one end of the blank and turn the tube while inserting it in the blank. I have never had a tube come loose and if you still have trouble I suspect the epoxy is not mixed correctly or maybe has gone bad.
PS I only use the 5 minute epoxy and I wait about 20 minutes before squaring the blank and turning, hope this helps.
 
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Traguh

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May 12, 2012
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Martinsville, Indiana
Excellent advice! I got some small wooden sticks at the local w*mart in the craft section. They are about half the size of a Popsicle stick. I mix up my epoxy with the stick and then use it to get the epoxy down in the blank and spread nicely. I too have never had a failure. Plus I don't get stuck to my work anymore!
 

alamocdc

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Apr 26, 2005
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San Antonio, Texas, USA.
The biggest issue with epoxy failing on tubes of the lack of "tooth". You have to rough up the tubes to give the epoxy something to bite. Plus, fresh out of the bag, there may be oil on the tubes left over from the extrusion and/or cutting process. So after I rough mine up on the belt sander, I wipe them down with DNA.
 
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Oct 11, 2011
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Monterrey Mexico
I always used Gorilla Glue to glue my tubes. I love the fact that it expands, so it seals everything and is especially useful when tubes are a bit loose. I then decided to experiment a little and got this product
Amazon.com: System Three 5 Minute Epoxy, 1/2 Pint: Home Improvement

I love it. I much prefer this 2 separate bottles presentation rather than the syringe type epoxy usually comes in. I think what I like the most about this product is the non-messy outcome, and the fact that I can start working on my blanks in just a few minutes. Gorilla usually left a big hard messy blob of dried glue at the ends of my tubes, and worse, it sometimes pushed out my tubes. I wasted a few blanks because of this.

Never had a loose tube problem using this epoxy. Of course, I rough and clean my tubes, but that's something I always do no matter the glue I'm using.

HTH
 
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Southwest

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Jan 2, 2012
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Location
New Carlisle, OH
Great advice already given on application. One thing I would like to add is that I have had great success mixing a very small amount of acrylic paint, maybe 3 drops, into the epoxy while I am mixing prior to application for any transparent materials. This works great when you are worried about your brass tube showing through the finished product. This doesn't replace painting the tubes or reverse painting the blank but sometimes there just isn't enough room to do both or either. Just be careful as this speeds up the curing time so don't try to mix more than one pen's worth at a time.
 

warthog

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Aug 1, 2011
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Location
Blue Springs, Ms.
Another thing to look at is how hot is the blank becoming while you are turning? The epoxy I use is from Epo-Grip and I trust that epoxy from prior use in the taxidermy field. I have gotten the blank to hot on a couple of occasions and the blank came loose from the tube even with the tube sanded.
 
Joined
Oct 11, 2011
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Monterrey Mexico
Maybe I'm just an old miser, but that 2-part epoxy seems very overpriced.

+1 - 1/2 pint is 8 oz - I see much cheaper 5 minute epoxy in 8 and 9 oz sizes right there on Amazon. I can't say anything about the quality of those others, but Wooden Wonders (an IAP member) has top quality epoxy at $10.50 for 8 oz.

Thanks for the heads up. I often don't make my purchases based on price.
 
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