Drop filling

[Barry Daniels]

I use a toothpick to do drop fills of lacquer or CA on finish dings. But really tiny pores don't need that much liquid to fill them. The toothpick results in a large mound that has to be scraped down. Needles don't work very well because surface tension holds the drop above the tip of the needle. I saw a tool online for this so I had to make my own version. I took a sewing needle with a really small eye and ground half of the eye away resulting in a tiny fork. It allowed me to place a minuscule amount of CA in the open pore on a rosette, that required minimal leveling. I have read that you can clean the build up of glue residue on the tool by burning it off.

[Bob Gramann]

I like that. It solves one of my problems. I’m gonna make one, too.

[Paul Breen]

Good tip! I have been using micro pipettes for CA but sometimes even that is too much.

[David King]

Now how to find that needle in the haystack when you need it!

[Barry Daniels]

I put it in a dowel handle.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Slick! We will all be raiding the Frau's sewing supplies

[Chuck Tweedy]

brilliant Barry - thanks.

[Mark Wybierala]

I've encountered this problem many times and have made many different tools to apply CA.

A plastic drinking straw cut at a long angle to a sharp tip and the tip split to different lengths. A pair of short lengths of guitar strings inserted into a dowel handle. Tooth picks cut like a quill pen. Whippet tips heated and stretched. Wound guitar strings both standard and nylon core.

I like your idea because I can go to a sewing center and purchase a fair quantity of fine needles all the same and expect consistency in operation.

There may be a method or step someone will discover to encourage the CA to move more readily into the eye of the needle such as wipe the needle with an acetone q-tip or something like that. The problem is that CA has a habit of misbehaving and not going where you want it to go.

I use the plastic caps from discarded water bottles to hold a puddle of CA when doing things like this.

[Darrel Friesen]

There is a note in the old Glue FAQ thread that mentions using a cleanly cut, wound guitar string for drop filling. The tip wicks up a small amount for small repairs.

[Alan Carruth]

I copped a roll of Teflon 'spaghetti' when I was helping a friend salvage some stuff from a shut-down lab at MIT years ago. It's fine tubing they use to insulate wires, such as the leads on a transistor, when building a prototype board. I think the stuff I got is #26: it just fits in the spout of the CA bottle. I use a one or two inch length, and trim up the end when it gets blocked by hardened glue. You can see the liquid coming down the spout, and regulate it nicely to get a small drop where you want it. It also helps keep air out of the bottle so the glue doesn't set up; I haven't thrown out any CA to speak of since I started using the stuff. Electronic suppliers sell it; a roll should last you and all of your buddies a lifetime.

For leveling up I often use the tape trick on a scraper. Sharpen the scraper to have a small and very sharp burr: I like to use a fine diamond stone on my hard scraper. Put pieces of cellophane tape over the edge at either end, leaving a gap a little wider than the area you want to scrape. You can then level the surface using light cuts, and the scraper will stop cutting when the drop is just proud of the surface. From there I level off with very fine (#2500) sandpaper on a block, and polish.