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Sunday, October 9, 2011
Recoveries - Heat Gun and Glue
Back when I was making the dovetailed drawers for my vanity, I did something dumb and one drawer got glued in place crocked. I thought I was going to have to bandsaw the drawer off and go through a lot of scraping (all the while creating new enhanced vocabulary), but a simple heat gun trick took it apart despite the fact that the whole thing was glued up for 2 days.
Here's a short video showing it in action; hopefully you'll file it away in your head and never have to use it.
Thanks, Tim. Unfortunately, I can only replace the blade of the stick with the heat gun; I've never figured a way to preload it with goals :)
Oh, good idea, Mark... here in Arizona raising the grain goes pretty quickly :) but I could see it being useful if you want to get to finishing immediately after applying water.
Paul Are you sure that the ultimate joint strength won't be altered? Sometimes you need to compromise and a dovetail joint almost doesn't need glue. I'm not sure that I would do that on some less intrinsically strong joint.
That being said I done a lot worse than that!! I am surprised that modern glues would react like that. I don't think that I would have even thought of heating up the joint. As in most circumstances desperate men do desperate things which can lead to a good idea.
Hide glue is designed to release with heat. If i lived in Arizona I would watch what I stored in my my car while I shopped in woodcraft, certainly not my recently glued up panels!!
Bummer, Jim, as I've had this video ready to release for almost a month :) d'oh! I knew I needed filler for this week when my day job went nuts and when filming the finishing video... varnish coats alone will take days!
John, I don't know definitively if the joint strength will be compromised. As you point out, the dovetail joint doesn't need much glue at all. I did clean up the joint before regluing it so the joint was effectively 'sized' instead of raw. It seemed fine the next day.
When I applied the drawer fronts (done weeks ago but I'm still editing the video), I used hide glue because of its reversibility. Certainly, it doesn't let go without a fight, but the fight is less than with PVA.
I should have mentioned in the video that I intended to use hide glue for the front Mahogany-to-Maple joint. It looks so much like Mahogany when dried that it can make up for -ahem- messy shoulders one might end up with if rushing to get out of a hot garage. For the back Maple-to-Maple, I wanted PVA since it is closer to Maple color (Elmer's would have been better still). I think of these things, then forget when I do them :)
BTW, Epoxy softens at 250ºF, but so does the lignan in the wood!
Ah, Vic, you're back! :-P Thought you went down the photography squirrel-hole, which wasn't a bad thing... I want to frame nearly all your HDR shots.
Oh, I just realized that Jim thought I was nuts enough to be a goalie... heck no! Not getting in front of 90 mph shots (okay, our league, 50ish) although when I played defense, I stopped more than a few slap-shots with my ankle. ouch. I think that's why one looks funny.
So if you're an online-casino spambot in human form, kindly get run over, dropped head-first off a prespice, or caught up in a bailer; bot-choice. To decent humans, welcome! And thanks for leaving a comment :)
Paul:
ReplyDeleteVery creative! Using a heat gun for attaching the blade for your hockey stick to fix your drawer.
Nice.
Tim
Nice fix Paul, heat-guns come in very handy don't they, I use one to make pre-raising the grain quicker.(I still haven't sent your parcel by the way)
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tim. Unfortunately, I can only replace the blade of the stick with the heat gun; I've never figured a way to preload it with goals :)
ReplyDeleteOh, good idea, Mark... here in Arizona raising the grain goes pretty quickly :) but I could see it being useful if you want to get to finishing immediately after applying water.
No worries about the parcel!
GREAT! tip, Paul! I wish you would have posted this last week. It would have saved me a cut and redone domino.
ReplyDeleteI thought you were a goalie?
Jim
Paul
ReplyDeleteAre you sure that the ultimate joint strength won't be altered? Sometimes you need to compromise and a dovetail joint almost doesn't need glue. I'm not sure that I would do that on some less intrinsically strong joint.
That being said I done a lot worse than that!! I am surprised that modern glues would react like that. I don't think that I would have even thought of heating up the joint. As in most circumstances desperate men do desperate things which can lead to a good idea.
Hide glue is designed to release with heat. If i lived in Arizona I would watch what I stored in my my car while I shopped in woodcraft, certainly not my recently glued up panels!!
John
Bummer, Jim, as I've had this video ready to release for almost a month :) d'oh! I knew I needed filler for this week when my day job went nuts and when filming the finishing video... varnish coats alone will take days!
ReplyDeleteJohn, I don't know definitively if the joint strength will be compromised. As you point out, the dovetail joint doesn't need much glue at all. I did clean up the joint before regluing it so the joint was effectively 'sized' instead of raw. It seemed fine the next day.
When I applied the drawer fronts (done weeks ago but I'm still editing the video), I used hide glue because of its reversibility. Certainly, it doesn't let go without a fight, but the fight is less than with PVA.
I should have mentioned in the video that I intended to use hide glue for the front Mahogany-to-Maple joint. It looks so much like Mahogany when dried that it can make up for -ahem- messy shoulders one might end up with if rushing to get out of a hot garage. For the back Maple-to-Maple, I wanted PVA since it is closer to Maple color (Elmer's would have been better still). I think of these things, then forget when I do them :)
BTW, Epoxy softens at 250ºF, but so does the lignan in the wood!
Very Creative, I cringed when you said you spilled tea all over your Veritas Planes.
ReplyDeleteGreat tip! I have a couple from my construction days. Handy little buggers.
ReplyDeleteAh, Vic, you're back! :-P Thought you went down the photography squirrel-hole, which wasn't a bad thing... I want to frame nearly all your HDR shots.
ReplyDeleteOh, I just realized that Jim thought I was nuts enough to be a goalie... heck no! Not getting in front of 90 mph shots (okay, our league, 50ish) although when I played defense, I stopped more than a few slap-shots with my ankle. ouch. I think that's why one looks funny.