CA finish cure question

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emsmith

Member
Joined
Jan 30, 2005
Messages
45
Location
New York, USA.
I'm just starting to use CA as a finish and like the results so far but I have one question that is nagging me. When is the finish cured? When it is hard or when the sharp smell goes away? The smell is not going away for 20 minutes or longer so I am waiting at least that long to sand and polish. I am using multiple coats of thin CA, no accelerator, no BLO, which I allow to become dry to the touch before applying the next coat. After watching the tutorials and reading the articles in the library it seems like the finish should be cured almost instantly - but this lingering odor bothers me.

Thanks,

Eric
 
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Paper towel acts as a catalyst of some sort and speeds up the curing. It does wipe away any think layer build up.

For this reason, I don't always use paper towel all the time. Instead, I usually use rubber glove or a flat piece of non stick nylon like material to apply CA smoothly in thicker layers. IN doing it this way, thick layers often take 10 to 30 minutes to "cure" enough to work. For some, this is way too long. For me, I usually do one pen at a time and only one or two in a week at the most. And I have other things to do while it is curing.

Occasionally I will need to get 3 to 5 pens out and in this situation, I use the paper towel and CA method and build up several thin layers and finish quickly. The CA cures almost instantly in this case.

You said that you use thin coats, but bear in mind that "thin coats" is probably a relative/subjective term. Are you using paper towel to apply it or how are you applying it? BLO and Paper towel both act as catalyst. Rubber gloves and nylon applicators do not and allow for a thicker coat to be applied which will take the extra time you are talking about.
 
I'm probably going to get some comments on this technique (and I hope I do) but here's what I do:

Sand to the finish I want (usually through the MM pads)

1. Fold paper towel into 8ths (so I have 8 thicknesses).
2. Apply long bead of thick CA to bottom third of towel (hold folder towel so it is more vertical than horizontal).
3. Apply towel/CA to pen blank as it turns on the lathe.
4. Apply puddle of BLO to second third of paper towel.
5. Apply towel/BLO to pen blank.
6. Run pen blank with top third of towel to remove excess.
7. Throw away towel (see other post about 'Almost Fire')

Repeat above 6-8 times sometimes remembering to sand with 800 grit paper in between.

Finish with two coats of friction polish and two coats of Ren Wax.

I don't want for any curing except when applying the CA/BLO and it cures almost immediately. In fact, the CA is smoking slightly by the time I get to the BLO.

This has worked fine for me. Part of it is based on one of the videos. I don't know if it is 'right' but I like the finish.

(But then none of my pens are old enough to show wear and tear from the test of time.)

Michael
 
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