Metal segments

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Hubert H

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Greetings, What have you found to be the best glue for gluing in copper, aluminum or other metals for a segment? Thank you.
 
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Dieseldoc

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My experience with epoxy is that the 5 mim stuff doesn't always work. I have changed and use System three T-88 and for extreme holding epoxy use West system G-flex.
Most important is the cure time as with any epoxy, with System three and West system cure time is longer and I always wait for 12 plus hours, most of the time over night has always worked.
When working with Exotic wood ,metal and other non wood items , rough -suff it up with sand paper and make sure it's clean and dry.
 

Dale Parrott

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Just my 2 cents worth...

Looks like just about everyone here is saying, it's epoxy. That may be the case but I'm still using thin CA and Gabe's method of clamp first, glue second. I just made a blank last week with 4 aluminum inserts and all went well, including drilling to 7mm.
I'd rather blow up a blank once in a while that wait for epoxy to harden and cure. Just don't have the patients for watching glue dry.
 

jttheclockman

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Just my 2 cents worth...

Looks like just about everyone here is saying, it's epoxy. That may be the case but I'm still using thin CA and Gabe's method of clamp first, glue second. I just made a blank last week with 4 aluminum inserts and all went well, including drilling to 7mm.
I'd rather blow up a blank once in a while that wait for epoxy to harden and cure. Just don't have the patients for watching glue dry.
Dale I have seen your work and it speaks for itself. You are an artisan. Everyone has their own methods and things they do to make not only segmented blanks but any blank in general. But with that said I am from the other side of the isles and too use epoxy and it is well documented what I use. I can not see how you can clamp the blank and expect the CA to seep into joints and be well bonded. Especially if using materials like acrylic backed up with metal. You may get away with it on wood and metal if the wood is porous enough. But o get cA to seep far into a blank is a chance I would never take. Do not know who Gabe is and what his method is for a beginner I would suggest glue first and clamp second till you become a little more experienced. I am working on a few acrylic and metal blanks now and I would never dare to use CA because it is too brittle of an adhesive. These blanks would fall apart when looking at them. They still may not hold up when turning but I am giving what I think is the best chance I have. I just want to make the point for those just starting out adding metals to segments. When they get as good as you Dale then they should experiment.
 

Dale Parrott

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Thank you for your take on this JT. I'm glad that we can have a discussion here, have different opinions, and be civil. It's a good day. Personally I'm not a fan of acrylics and generally limit my materials to wood and aluminum. Although some of the acrylics are very pretty, I just like wood. I have a several blanks that were bought / given to me that are pine cone and burl in an acrylic blank of some kind and there they sit.

Gabe Castro is a very talented segmented pen turner that has some fantastic videos. Here is a link to his method of aligning a segment, clamping in place, and finally glue. The whole video is good but the gluing part starts at about 9 minutes. I vary a bit from his method and try to pre trim my materials so there is not as much to trim off after the glue sets..
 

jttheclockman

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Thank you for your take on this JT. I'm glad that we can have a discussion here, have different opinions, and be civil. It's a good day. Personally I'm not a fan of acrylics and generally limit my materials to wood and aluminum. Although some of the acrylics are very pretty, I just like wood. I have a several blanks that were bought / given to me that are pine cone and burl in an acrylic blank of some kind and there they sit.

Gabe Castro is a very talented segmented pen turner that has some fantastic videos. Here is a link to his method of aligning a segment, clamping in place, and finally glue. The whole video is good but the gluing part starts at about 9 minutes. I vary a bit from his method and try to pre trim my materials so there is not as much to trim off after the glue sets..
OK I have seen some of his videos which are very good. I would like to add something here from his use of drill press and not sure if address that in any of his videos, but your drill press needs to be in top order to drill holes like that. You have runout in the chuck or holesaws and you have problems. All these little things may get overlooked when people want to try things. Again though he is relying on the wicking action of wood and I do not see the difference if he would glue first and then clamp. I would never trust acrylics and metals that way and again just me and would warn newbies that there could very well be dry spacing in the middle and CA is again not my glue of choice for doing segment work. I build blanks alot slower than you and others I guess because I am old and not into rushing time. :) Many ways to do things and sometimes get different results which in turn are different looks. In segmenting that is cool and great to take things from anyone. I just ran into a photo of a segmented pen the other day and loved the design. I had to do some in depth research to find the owner to ask permission to use the design and elaborate on it some. He did give the OK as most segmenters love sharing so you will see a few of those soon.
 
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