Finishing Pens with CA Glue

hello and welcome back to my shop often I get questions from people asking about my CA glue finish specifically how I go about applying it to my ink pens so let's take a couple of minutes tonight and just show you the process that I use for applying CA glue to my pens before I do I'd like to take just a couple of minutes and talk about another YouTube woodworker who really inspires me his name is Steve French now I'm going to include a link to Steve's youtube channel in the comments of this video if you don't know who Steve French is I strongly urge you to take just a couple of minutes jump over to his channel and check out some of the works Steve is doing one of the reasons why I love Steve's work so much is because he doesn't do the run-of-the-mill woodworking project Steve is incredibly talented and does some some somewhat bizarre unusual projects and I really respect that another thing that I really enjoy is he has a an odd or a bizarre sense of humor and it really comes through in his videos and you will enjoy watching Steve perform magic with woodworking so if you don't know who Steve is and you have not checked him out before take the time check him out subscribe to his channel like his videos you are not going to be sorry because his work is impressive and now let's go ahead and run through the procedure I use for putting a CA glue finish on my pans quick disclaimer though before we get started I'm not saying this is the only way to apply CA I'm certainly not saying this is the best way to apply CA I'm simply saying this is my way of applying it and I hope if you're watching this video to learn a little bit about how to do a CA glue finish that you not only watch this video but you watch several others take what you like from my video take what you like from the other videos you watch combine them and come up with your own process I personally like to use a thin CA glue I get my product from psi and I'll apply anywhere from 6 to 12 coats to pending on the how porous the material is that I'm applying the CA glue to one of the first things I do and I've already done it to this blank is I like to sand my blank somewhere between 4 and 600 grit this blank has been sanded down to 400 grit you've probably noticed right off that these do not look like your standard pen bushings what I'm using here are some nonstick bushings that are designed for ca finishes these bushings the CA glue will not stick to them so after I've turned my pin down to the proper dimensions and after I've sanded it I simply replace the original pin bushings with these non stick bushings the next thing I like to do when I'm preparing for my CA glue finish is I take some paper towels and I cut them into 1-inch strips and then I cut those 1-inch strips in half to make some nice little pads to apply my CA glue I take one of those pads of paper and I just fold it twice like this I put my lathe on the slowest possible speed started spinning I simply apply some CA glue to the paper towel rub it along the blank and discard the paper towel in about ten seconds this blank is dried to the touch grab another piece paper and repeat the process now you want to be sure to move quickly when applying the glue a lot of people wear gloves because the glue will soak through the paper towel and will get on your fingers I generally apply somewhere between three to four coats of glue and then I allow the pen to dry and I sand it I've applied three coach to this blank and you can see it's starting to take on a little bit of a sheen as I begin to polish this blank and smooth out my superglue finish it's really going to start to pop I use the product if I micro mesh and basically it's multiple grits of sandpaper from 1500 grit all the way up to 12,000 grit it comes with a sponge that you lay the sandpaper on and use that to apply pressure to the blank I recently acquired some of these little pads I've seen a lot of other woodworkers use them I do believe you dip them in water get them damp and then you wet sand the blank I haven't tried these yet but I think they're gonna work just as well as my micro mesh paper to sand I simply start to lathe still on the lowest possible speed and just apply light pressure buffing the blanket and I just run through the grits [Music] I won't make you sit here and watch me go through all of the grits I'll go ahead and do all of the grits and then I'll come back and show you what the blank looks like at this point I have run through all nine of my polishing papers from 1500 grit up to 12,000 grit what I like to do now is go ahead and apply three more coats of CA glue to my blank and then we'll polish it one more time took a couple of seconds but that blank is now dry [Music] my three coats replied the blank looks really good and I'm going to go ahead and run through my nine grits of polishing paper [Music] and once again I will spare you the boredom of watching me sand and I'll come back when sanding is complete I finished running through my polishing paper and Fleck looks really good I've got six coats of super glue built up on there you can continue to build up coats as many as you like some people do nine some do 12 on this particular blankets walnut Blanc I think six is gonna be really sufficient and really gonna make this Blanc pop the next step that I take is I use a one-step plastic polish now I've had a lot of people say hey Bob you're sanding 12,000 grit and that polish has a viscosity that's not quite you know it's way less than that I realized that however I need something to polish it up the CA glue and bring it to a nice luster and I found this this product does a nice job for me to apply this product a Speedman lays up to about half of its full speed I take a little bit of a paper towel you'll need a bit on there and polish it in [Music] I grab a clean dry piece of paper towel and buff the blank [Music] I'd like to do two applications I don't know that it's necessary but everybody kind of has their own idiosyncrasies and this is just one of mine [Music] now we'll buff the final coat with a clean piece of paper towel [Music] I always like to get the ins clean [Music] and we have put a really nice shine and a great protective coating on this blanket if you're looking to learn a little bit about CA glue finishing I hope this video was beneficial to you I hope there are some things you'll be able to take away and use as you develop your own procedure if you liked what you saw today please like my video consider subscribing to my channel and as always I do love to hear your comments and I make every effort to answer each and every comment or question thank you for watching have a great evening happy woodworking and come back and see me again sometime

Channel: RJBWoodTurner

Views: 73,614

Keywords: RJBWoodTurner, Blanford, Bob Blanford, Robert Blanford, C/A Finish, CA Finish, Pen Finishing, lathe, turning, pen, pen turning, pen finishing, adhesive

Id: zRwuPq71fYA

Length: 10min 8sec (608 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 01 2014