Plastics & glue

[Paul Downes]

Went to jump into plastic pen blank turning tonight and got to lookin at the gorilla glue that I use on 99% of the wood blanks- and its plastic bottle, and got to wondering if it will stick to plastic blanks well??

 

[wudnhed]

Paul, if you mean plastic, I don't know. If you mean acrylic, yes it will stick, I use it. Altho if you turn the blank down thin you might be able to "see" the glue and or tube thru the acrylic.

 

[Paul Downes]

Would water clear epoxy be a better choice? I hadn't thought about seeing the tube. That would be somewhat tacky on a stateman. I just drilled some acrylic black pearl for a statesman and I sure would hate to mess it up. Maybe black epoxy if there is such an animal.

 

[pssherman]

Best bet would be to paint the inside of the blank. Then you couldn't see the tube or the glue.

Paul in AR

 

[Paul Downes]

Good idea!!! Maybe I should put a picture in it, like them pens you see at truck stops? How tacky is that![]

 

[wudnhed]

Or paint your tube before gluing it in.

 

[gerryr]

If there is any chance at all that the acrylic or Lucite or PR is going to be transluscent, I paint the inside of the blank with either Testor's enamel or fingernail polish. The paint adheres better to the blank than to the tube, plus it has the advantage of hiding the air bubbles in whatever glue you use. Although on a Caramel Creme Lucite pen, I didn't paint anything and added glitter to the epoxy. A lady snatched it right up at a show.

 

[Paul Downes]

Guess I need a couple of new tubes. Got ahead of myself and glued in the tubes on a black pearl blank and guess what, looks like a rather sick color of green. Buggers are slippery and even if I wanted to use these blanks, I managed to drop one and crack it. Feelin real talented right now.[]

 

[tnilmerl]

You can tint your epoxy to match or add constrast to your blank. Transtinit is one brand. There is also a brand call Mixol that has a full spectrum of colors, not just black or earth/wood tones.

I planning on using a pearl white to tint some epoxy for some acyrlic glue-ups instead of painting the tubes. It'll be an interesting test. I may end up tinting and painting, but we'll see.