Glue Wars 2

eyeeatingfish said:
Part of my problems in the past may have been surface prep. I would rough up the surface a little bit and use paint thinner to wipe it down.
I have heard acetone is the best to use since it leaves no residue so I bought that to clean off oils and dust.

I am wondering how many of my difficulties were from some film that whatever paint thinner type material i used was leaving behind. EDIT: When i read page 2 here I saw that almost every cleaner left some sort of residue... I guess I will try the glass test and see how that turns out. Not sure what to use, just sand by itself and hope the dust brushes off witha cloth or something?


I checked my local hardware store today but I didn't see the one that was recommended, the acraglass.
Anyone know where to get this one is it special or something?

My dad didn't really like the gorilla glue for some reason so i think i got a bottle. Ill have to start using it when doing wood. I know I had had trouble working with it before. I don't know if I knew about the moisture prep though.
Click to expand...

Acetone is a good solvent, but still has oily residue, try rubbing alcohol.

Acraglas is trade named a firearms bedding compound from Brownells
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=1033/product/ACRAGLAS_reg_

Gorilla Glue is bad for knives - it foams and bubbles, leaving a poor finish.
Look at the steel handle line
IMG_09d08_op_768x576.jpg



West systems epoxy is good too.
 
12345678910 said:
Acetone is a good solvent, but still has oily residue, try rubbing alcohol.

Acraglas is trade named a firearms bedding compound from Brownells
http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=1033/product/ACRAGLAS_reg_

Gorilla Glue is bad for knives - it foams and bubbles, leaving a poor finish.
Look at the steel handle line
IMG_09d08_op_768x576.jpg



West systems epoxy is good too.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I fear the arcaglass as I have heard it is very picky about being measured properly. I might look into the west systems though.
I might try cleaning my blades with straight water since water shouldn't leave a film.... right?
 
eyeeatingfish said:
Thanks for the reply. I fear the arcaglass as I have heard it is very picky about being measured properly. I might look into the west systems though.
I might try cleaning my blades with straight water since water shouldn't leave a film.... right?
Click to expand...

Water won't leave a film, but it won't clean off oil either.
Your fingertip oil is on there are the very least.

rubbing alcohol works & it's quite cheap.
 
eyeeatingfish said:
According to fitzo he tried to different alcohols and all left a residue including isopropyl and denatured alcohol.
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/337504-Glue-Wars-2?p=2986508#post2986508
Click to expand...

It works for me.

I don't know why it wouldn't work for him, although he did say he was using remainders from work.

All I can think of is that the containers may have become contaminated by others using it?
you know - tip a bottle into a used rag & the bottle catches some oily run back?
 
12345678910 said:
Gorilla Glue is bad for knives - it foams and bubbles, leaving a poor finish.
Click to expand...

In the testing Tracy did he found Gorilla glue to only be good when used on wood to metal surfaces, where your picture shows it foaming outside do you think this was caused because its a composite or g10 substrate.. ??

I realize the threads old and that's the reason for my question.. things have probably changed...

I was going to use GG but now dunno, any updates to the new technology of glues??

perhaps we need a Glue War 3??
 
I spent a short time in a scientific lab, where we had to get some objects extremely clean for physics experiments.

We normally used chemically pure solvents (ie: expensive! and made pure enough for chemists). I think household rubbing-alcohol is typically 90% alcohol, and the remainder, while mostly being water, also has other stuff. This is partly because rubbing-alcohol is cheap, and for household use, there is no reason to pay the extra manufacturing costs of purifying the alcohol further. Othertimes, a tiny amount of fragrance or lubricant is added to make it a little nicer for skin.

In a lab that I wasn't in (but same physics department), they used the following procedure to super-clean surfaces with solvents:
1) Clean with chemically pure acetone. Acetone dissolves a lot of stuff and does the bulk of the cleaning. But because acetone dissolves tons of stuff, so is easily contaminated.
2) Follow-up with chemically pure alcohol. Doesn't dissolve as much stuff, but less easy to contaminate, so could be a cleaner "final wash" of the surface.

Some guys in my lab didn't believe in this procedure, and only used acetone with no alcohol follow-up. But the other lab followed it religiously.

I, myself, learned the hard way, that many paper-towels have contaminants which leach out with solvents. I was trying to clean a surface by wiping it down with chemically-pure solvent and house-hold paper towels. But instead, I was contaminating it more and more! About halfway through, I actually saw that I was adding a faint white haze to the surface. D'oh...! I spent the rest of the afternoon in the lab cleaning that off!

I should have used Kimwipes, which are paper-towels designed for laboratory use (Kimberly-Clark Kimwipes which you can buy from many places, including amazon.com). My guess is that household paper-towels (and paper) have tons of additives (such as binder/glue/dyes) and are made of raw materials that are not heavily purified/refined.

Physics-lab and chemistry-lab levels of experiment cleanliness are probably over-kill for epoxy gluing operations. Even so, it may be interesting/useful to learn about their basic procedures (without getting into their super-advanced and high-tech stuffs). Science lab usually try to find procedures which are simple, reliable, and effective, so that they can focus on other parts of their experiments.

I'm not too surprised by the comments which 12345678910 pointed to above (written by fitzo):
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/337504-Glue-Wars-2?p=2986508#post2986508

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"What grit sharpens the mind?"--Zen Sharpening Koan
 
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Battle Creek Knives said:
In the testing Tracy did he found Gorilla glue to only be good when used on wood to metal surfaces, where your picture shows it foaming outside do you think this was caused because its a composite or g10 substrate.. ??

I realize the threads old and that's the reason for my question.. things have probably changed...

I was going to use GG but now dunno, any updates to the new technology of glues??

perhaps we need a Glue War 3??
Click to expand...

I have used Gorilla Glue on knives before and had no problems with the bubbly glue line. Yes it was there when the glue cured but I just used a hobby knife to cut and scrap it off first then cleaned with acetone and alcohol. Could be that I just got lucky, but it did work for me
 
I started out with Loctite 330 and am still using it. The ONLY problem I've got with it is the very short working time. Sometimes that's great, other times it's a major hassle. I may contact them about a slower curing alternative with similar properties. By slower I mean five to ten minutes of working time rather than the current one minute. Maybe they've got a different activator or something. If you have any questions about their products, give them a call. They're VERY helpful about figuring out which of their products will do the job you need done.
 
You can easily purify your acetone and Isopropyl alcohol( much easier with 90% then 70) at home . The acetone you buy and all other solvents you get from the hardware store aren't "dry" and have water in them and other stuff in small amounts . As Lagrangian was saying unless you have access to reagent lab quality chemicals your going to have some sort of residue. An easy way to reduce this is to go buy a big jug of epsom salts ie bath salts = Magnesium sulfate : MgSO4·7H2O to be precise ($4 at walmart for a big jug) then put them into a oven safe dish preferably one that you don't cook you roasts in and heat them at 400f-450f for two hours . This will dry the salts and you'll get a big chunk of Anhydrous Magnesium Sulfate (MgSO) . Crunch it up and store it in a preservatives jar or any air tight container. Back to drying your solvents, set up a funnel with coffee filters in a jar and place a bunch of chunks of your new drying agent into the filters and then pour your acetone / isopropyl/ solvent through . Do this a few times with new "baked salt" and you will get pretty darn close to pure acetone/ non-polar solvent. Store all solvents with the same precautions as one would normally do , this goes for while filtering too ( no ignition devices around , common sense please).

If you do this it should reduce any residue leftover from the solvents themselves , whatever muck is made from xyz adhesive you used mixed with acetone I can't say. MEK (methyl ethyl ketone) works better then acetone for clean ups . It's hard to buy as a stand alone but is the main ingredient is stuff like " Goo Off, Goo B Gone". This last statement isn't 100% and someone can correct me if I'm wrong but the drying of salts and using them to purify non-polar solvents ( acetone) is bang on. That's it for home science class for me , if anyone knows more and think I'm incorrect please post for my sake and others.
 
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Ok, I feel a little bit better about acetone now, but I may need to look at something else instead of paper towels.

I am still stuck at deciding which glue to use. I have gorilla glue but I sometimes use stabilized wood and sometimes use brass or G10 or micarta and those vulcanized liners as handle materials. Plus I just bought a larger batch of the 2ton epoxy for the shop and now I am hesitant to use it.

I have had handles that use the 2 ton epoxy fail but I am not sure if that is the glues fault or the fault of me not using a good cleaner like acetone.

I am a little intimidated by arcaglass. It seems a little expensive and from what I understand it needs to be measured very precisely?
 
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