Shopsmith Forums

"In the past I have used 08X31 Special T CA Adhesive for pen blanks, from Woodcraft.com A bottle came with a pen making kit I purchased from the about four years ago. I used that one bottle until last week when it dried up."

If you put the CA in the freezer when it's not in use, it won't dry up.

I knew that once upon a time. Thanks for assisting my feeble memory.

About the comment on the barrel turning around the brass tube; did you first sand the tube before gluing it? I use 150 grit to thoroughly clean the tube, much the same way you would use emery cloth before sweating copper pipes.

BPR

That's a good idea for specialty tubes that you don't use very often. But for 7mm tubes, I buy a lot of 10" tubes and extra bags of slimline tubes. Unless I am having great difficulty turning and blowing out a lot of blanks, it doesn't seem like it would be worth it to clean used tubes.

For those of you having tubes come unglued, I first scuff the outside of the tubes. This gives the glue gripping power. I always sand around the tube and not with the length.

I also coat both the tube and the inside of the blank. I use a toothpick to make sure the entire surface of the hole inside the blank is coated. I then run a bead of glue down the length of the tube and twist it as I insert it. In two years I haven't had a single tube come loose when I used this procedure.

This was a helpful thread!

I had got my 'training' on gluing the tubes in the blanks from the Pens From the Wood Lathe book sold by Shopsmith a while back. The author would 'spread' glue by coating a tube, inserting and retracting it at one end of the blank, then doing a final coated insertion at the other end of the blank. I have been doing this but lately I see with a well-sized hole the darn blank will scrape most of my epoxy off the tube during insertion. I like the tip on coating the inside of the blank (using a toothpick). Will try this soon.