Gluing brass tubes

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I use CA and Gorilla, depending on the type of wood and how soon I expect to turn the pens. I really like the way Gorilla holds better than CA, but in some cases, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
 
Primarily epoxy... either 5 min or 90 min depending on how many kits I am setting up at the time...
Occassionally I will use thick CA, but be careful some spalted woods act as an instant accellerator for CA and can lock up the tubes before you get them into the blank... had that happen a couple of times before I realized what was happening..
Gave up using poly glue after setting up 20 kits and leaving them to dry overnight and finding 8 tubes pushed out of the blanks the next morning... really ticked me off..
On materials that may crack due to material movement like antler, soapstone, etc. I am going to try a trick I got from Bill B and use clear silicone caulk. He says it takes up the movement and eliminates virtually all the problems associated with those kinds of materials.
One thing I always do is plug one end of the tubes.. it keeps whatever adhesive you are using out of the tubes. I use the baseplate wax that Bill B sells for $0.50 a sheet and a sheet lasts a long time...
 
setting up 20 kits and leaving them to dry overnight and finding 8 tubes pushed out of the blanks the next morning...
Click to expand...
The one and only time that I had this happen was with a Celluloid blank and that was because I used <b>too</b> much water inside the blanks (used a Q-tip instead of just breathing into the holes).
 
I tried the silicone calk (100% silicone) night before last on two pens out of antler. Let set up 24 hours. Had 50% failure rate[B)]. Antler spun on tube and when I took it off of mandrel I could push the tubes out. Reglued with CA, usually use epoxy but have had [B)]cracking issues with antler. Any ideas?
 
I have been using flexable CA, but have been thinking of switching to epoxy or poly. I have heard stories of CA becoming brittle after time and I don't want seperation later. I just hate the wait on the other glues. I think once I am doing more of a production runs insted of a couple of kits at a time it will be easier to have some blanks in the works for the next day.

Any bad CA stories? Does flexable ca have a good chance for holding up over time?
 
I have used CA for over 8 years, have not had a pen come back yet. I do, however, wait 24 hours to turn and once in a while they come loose on the mandrel, but I reglue, rewait and continue.

Hope this helps.
 
The worst problem that that I have heard about is CA gets inside the tube and you cannot see it is there untill its to late, like when you are pressing in the pen parts and the tube colapses and splits the wood. Now thats a real bummer, especially when you just completed a real good finish on a top notch blank.

Wayne
 
I've been using Gorilla and haven't had too many issues. Once, I cut the blank too short - exactly the size of the tube and it did come out a little - roughly 1/16". Thankfully it was a slimline and I was able to cut the tube down and work around the size. Didn't make much of a difference.

I have had two tubes (separate incidences) that didn't glue down. One of the pair was fine, the other the tube was loose. Can't figure out why.

Alan
 
I only use the thick CA. I have had the same problems everyone else has listed. Tubes coming out. Glue getting in. But for me I write it off as one of the hazards of the job. I turn when I can and lately I glue up a few at a time. So with any luck I have some ready. Generally its a couple 3 days later.
 
Alan,
I had the same problem this weekend. I think it may have been that I didn't breathe into the blank before putting the glue in, and may have used too little glue.
 
I use thick CA. If the wood is punky I squirt a little thin in the drill hole and let it set then use thick to glue the tube. I use an end mill to clean out the tubes and square the ends at the same time. BTW no one as said it so I will, sand your tubes and don't touch them with bare hands before you glue them.
 
Originally posted by dougle40
<br />
setting up 20 kits and leaving them to dry overnight and finding 8 tubes pushed out of the blanks the next morning...
Click to expand...
The one and only time that I had this happen was with a Celluloid blank and that was because I used <b>too</b> much water inside the blanks (used a Q-tip instead of just breathing into the holes).
Click to expand...

I've made 300+ pens over the last six months...used Gorilla poly on all of them...used a Q-tip dipped in water to wet the inside of all of them...and never had a tube pushed out by the glue.
 
I use CA for slimlines and cigars, Poly for my Barons, and Gents. I prefer CA. I have only had one glue failure on a cross cut paduak, but that may have been tools-too-dull failure as well. I use poly on the others because my larger bits are cheap HF bits and have enough runout that my tubes are too loose to be filled by CA. I don't like the cure time, and since I forget to order the wax from BB I have a heck of a time cleaning the tubes out.
 
CA all the way ,medium or thick.
I also make sure my tubes are ROUGH not just dull.
No problems
I also seal the ends of the antler with thin after milling and hit them with the mill after giving them a shot of accelerant.
Time from drilling-gluing-milling 10 minutes tops.
 
Normally I use 5 minute epoxy but if the hole comes out on the large side then I switch to gorilla. The 5 minute epoxy is nice because I can usually square up and turn about 15 or 20 minutes after I glue them. For gluing centerbands and laminations I will use CA but thats about the only time that I use it.

Wayne
 
I use mainly Poly, sometimes Epoxy. CA if I have a touch up to do while I'm actually working on a pen. otherwise CA is for finishes who would ever think of using it for a glue?
 
JimGo,

Sorry for being a newbie, but breathe into the tube??? I didn't know you need to do that. I've made about 50 pens by now, had trouble with only 2 or 3. I consider that not a bad average - and that I probably put too little glue on them.

Do tell, what does breathing into the tubes do? Is it a humidity thing?

Alan
 
Alan, yep. but thsi only applies to Poly. It cures by absorbing moisture from the atmosphere, this also causes the foaming. the moisture from your breath is great for Ahem, helping it along.
 
I glued up 10 corn cobs last night with Titebond Poly, and it was a disaster when I started turning today. I didn't know about the moisture part. Would that explain why the first six I turned tonight splintered off the tube? Or was it just Mr. Murphy?
 
I have used CA at 1st but had problems w/ tubes coming loose when squaring the balnks (think got a bad batch). I like the epoxy tho it is somewhat wasteful. I have used gorilla but it pushed one tube up, caught it in time to push back down. I think if I duct tape the tube in it would solve the prob.
 
Gorilla, I use a bamboo skewer to spread the glue throughout the blank. I set the tube, cleanup "squeeze-out", and lay them on the side. After 30 minutes or so, I've been going back to make sure the tubes haven't slipped or been pushed out. So far so good! (on all FOUR of my pens!) [;)]
 
Queso, I think that was my problem with a few last time. I just glued up some blanks that I ran some water into (wet Q-tip) first, and WOW, what a difference with the poly glue.
 
Gluing in brass tubes is not an exact science. The materials we glue together vary greatly and the types glues all have advantages and disadvantages. Without picking one over the other, here's more information than you probably want to know about glue.

Glue only works in two ways: direct bonding and contact bonding. In direct bonding you apply the adhesive directly between two surfaces. In contact bonding, you apply a layer of adhesive to each surface, and then the two layers of adhesive are put in contact to stick to each other. Contact bonding is not often used in craft work as the bond is near permanent the moment the two adhesive surfaces touch.

The glues most commonly used in woodworking fall into three categories: water based, solvent based and chemical curing.

Most wood glues are water based and cure through evaporation. They stick best to highly porous surfaces (such as wood) and thus are not a good choice for plastics and metals. Poly and CA glues are solvent based and also work by evaporation. They work best with less porous surfaces such as metals and plastics. Epoxy is chemical curing glue that involves a physical change when a hardener is introduced to a resin. This is a fast bond, but can be slowed by the introduction of a third chemical to increase the amount of time the chemical reaction takes. Epoxy works well on a wide variety of surfaces.

With all of this in mind you can more easily select the appropriate glue for your need, BUT, regardless of the glue the surface needs to be clean and free from lubricants (other than water).

*

Cyanoacrylate is an acrylic resin that cures (forms its strongest bond) almost instantly. The only trigger it requires is the hydroxyl ions in water, which is convenient since virtually any object you might wish to glue will have at least trace amounts of water on its surface. BTW, the water can be simply the humidity in the air!

White glues, such as Elmer's, bond by solvent evaporation. The solvent in Elmer's all-purpose school glue is water. When the water evaporates, the polyvinylacetate latex that has spread into a material's crevices forms a flexible bond. Super glue, on the other hand, undergoes a process called anionic polymerization. Cyanoacrylate molecules start linking up when they come into contact with water, and they whip around in chains to form a durable plastic mesh. The glue thickens and hardens until the thrashing molecular strands can no longer move.

With all of this in mind you can more easily select the appropriate glue for your need, BUT, regardless of the glue the surface needs to be clean and free from lubricants.
 
Originally posted by Queso
<br />I glued up 10 corn cobs last night with Titebond Poly, and it was a disaster when I started turning today. I didn't know about the moisture part. Would that explain why the first six I turned tonight splintered off the tube? Or was it just Mr. Murphy?
Click to expand...

Queso,
I am new to penturning but I have been doing woodworking for a while. I switched primarily to Gorilla glue on my furniture when it first came out and have had excellent results with it. The one thing I have noticed, especially on really dry wood (low moisture content) is I need to spritz a bit more water on the surface of the wood due to the moisture needed for the Gorilla glue to cure. Without sufficient moisture the Gorilla glue will not fully cure or get a good bond. I have never used a corn cob but if you are using corn cobs which are really dry and not using water I don't think you will get much of a bond at all with the Gorilla glue. I would say a corn cob would even require more added moisture (water) for the Gorilla glue to cure than wood does because of how dry and porous it is. If you didn't use any water at all I would say this was definitely a major contributing factor to your problems. I recently repaired/refinished my wash stand which is approx. 200 years old and crafted from American Chestnut. The wood was EXTREMELY dry due to years of sitting close to a coal burning stove without anyone adding any oil back to it and I noticed it required more spritzing of water than new wood does for the Gorilla glue to foam and cure good. The wood was sucking up all of the water before the glue could use it. After I made the needed repairs to this piece I finished it with Tung Oil and you could stand and watch it suck up the Tung Oil for about the first 10 coats I put on. On the first few I would just puddle the Tung Oil on it and watch it absorb into the wood. I bet the wash stand weighed 8-10 pounds more after I finished than it did before I started because it took just about a gallon of Tung Oil to finish it and most of it was absorbed into the dry wood. I would imagine that is what happened to your glue because this piece was as dry as a corn cob when I started on it. Many, Many years of not having any oils put back in the wood had really dried it out. The Chestnut wood now has a good moist look to it where it used to look dry and porous. I am very proud to have this piece especially since it was crafted from American Chestnut before it became extinct. I didn't mean to get so far off the subject but as soon as I read your post that is exactly what it reminded me off.

As for my pens I am now using the Gorilla glue on them because of some wood splitting problems I had in the beginning. I also know it will foam up and fill any gaps and also get full surface coverage between the tube and the wood. I feel this will help to keep the wood from splitting and hold better if it does split because I have a full surface bond without any gaps. I also feel more comfortable that it will not become brittle or lose it's bond due to atmospheric changes and wood movement over time.
Not that they are right but here are the steps I go through during glue-ups.
1) I chuck one end my tube into a cordless drill (I set my torque to #1 so I don't crush the tubes when the chuck grips it) and turn the tube with 60-80 grit sandpaper wrapped around it to put grooves all over it for better adhesion.
2) Wipe tube with denatured alcohol and let dry.
3) Moisten inside of blank with water. (I actually just put mine under the sink with the water just barely streaming out)
4) Apply 3 rings of Gorilla glue around tube and twist it 3/4 of the way into the blank to spread the glue.
5) Pull tube out of blank and put it on insertion tool glue end first.
6) Add a ring of glue to the end of the tube which didn't have glue on it and insert it into the OTHER end of the blank that I put it in before and I twist it all the way in the tube. This way I know I have fully covered the tube and hole with glue.
7) Lay blank on wax paper and repeat for next blank.
8) Wait 30-40 minutes
9) Check all tubes and push back in if they have moved.
10) Let dry AT LEAST 24 hours.
11) Square blanks with barrel trimmer
12) Clean out with a real fine round file.
13) Blow out with the compressor.
14) Put on mandrel and have fun!

Hope all of my jabbering helped somebody because it sure confused me! [:)]

Take Care!
 
Queso, the fact that the cobs splintered off the tubes does not sound like a glue failure to me... if the glue had failed they might have spun of the tubes...
Cobs are very very touchy to turn.. you need a real light touch with scary sharp tools.. cobs are more like grass than wood in their structure... if you have ever turned a red or black palm blank you know what I mean...
Even a slight catch can cause a cob to splinter off pieces... God only knows how many I have had that happen too... LOL..
I turn all my cobs using a skew and a planing cut... you can take a real fine almost dust like cut with this method... see the Alan Lacer video "Son of Skew".. great video for learning the skew and how to sharpen and maintain it...
 
Hello Everyone,
I have a question about these corn cobs you are using for pens because I would like to try to turn some. How do you prepare the cobs to turn and are you using dried cobs or are you cutting the corn off a green cobs and using them? I live in the country and corn cobs will be readily available and very cheap in a few months. Just gotta wait for the neighbor's corn to come in! [:D]
Also, how do you finish the cobs after you have turned them?

Thanks for your help!
 
Griz,
I've turned probably 30 cobs in the last three weeks, and I had only three or four fail prior to yesterday. I'm using the same stabilized cobs I always use, so I'm looking at what was different, and the only thing I did different was the poly glue. It's possible that there was no connection, but I'll be that there wasn't enough moisture to make the glue bond.
 
I use stabilized cobs from River Ridge Products. Excellent quality, but even the stabilized cobs are a real PIA to work with. Some use lots of CA on the cob, but that is an expensive and sort of unhealthy way to create a corn cob pen. If you're only doing one or two pens, it will work, but I'm making 10-12 corn cob pens a week, so I don't want to take the time to use CA.
 
I thought the stabilization process was supposed to permeate the cob with a filler that made them turn like a regular wood or plastic product. Does this only work part way or am I misunderstanding?
 
In reply to WoodnPecker
I have setup a rig to sand tubes similar to what you describe. I use a 1/4" threaded rod and place some wraps of painters tape around it. I taper the tape so I can slip the tube of the rod while the drill is running. I hold the tube with a piece of 100 grit sand paper as you press down on the tube it will spin with the drill and as you pickup the tube it will stop. As long as you don’t touch the tube there is no need to clean it. As far as gorilla glue while I have used it with some success I have had lots of trouble our average RH is less then 30%. I have to spray the joint let it set 15 min or so then spray again.
 
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Originally posted by rtparso
<br />In reply to WoodnPecker
I have setup a rig to sand tubes similar to what you describe. I use a 1/4" threaded rod and place some wraps of painters tape around it. I taper the tape so I can slip the tube of the rod while the drill is running. I hold the tube with a piece of 100 grit sand paper as you press down on the tube it will spin with the drill and as you pickup the tube it will stop. As long as you don’t touch the tube there is no need to clean it. As far as gorilla glue while I have used it with some success I have had lots of trouble our average RH is less then 30%. I have to spray the joint let it set 15 min or so then spray again.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip on the sanding rod. I will give it a try because I have to be real care the way I am doing it or it will crush the tube.

Thanks again and take care!
 
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