CA glue and baking soda

[Stan Calow]

I did a search and didnt find anything on this site about it. Maybe this is old news to some of you, but I read about using baking soda to instantly set CA glue, on a non-woodworking site. I tried it and it works. The advantage over spray accelerant is that it doesn't have smelly fumes, and is cheap. I use CA glue a lot, to fill dings, tearouts, gaps and cracks, so its worth knowing for me.

[John TenEyck]

How do you use it? Educate us, please.

John

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I have a friend who owns a music store. Often when someone brings in a guitar that has started having a "buzz" he finds it's created by the neck being crooked and the "nut" having been filed to lower the action. The groove for the string in the nut often has been filed it too low allowing the string to strike the frets as the string is vibrating. My friend uses CA and baking soda to rebuild the groove in the nut on the guitar and then refiles the groove to an useable height.

[glenn bradley]

For no-show fills I use this method. It gap-fills quite well in applications where adding a shim of material is troublesome (irregular shaped cracks or voids) and saves just dumping thick CA in and having to top off again and again. A shot of accelerator makes things go even faster. I dust the crack (or whatever) with enough soda to fill or even over-fill the gap. Add drops of CA to saturate, spray accelerator if desired and pare or sand to final shape.

[Robert LaPlaca]

Ah, this is an old r/c plane trick, I used to use it all the time. There are some downsides, one is the reaction with fast thin CA glues can be quite violent. Two, the cured baking soda takes on the consistency of concrete which may not be such an issue with the harder woods used to build furniture, but for contest balsa and spruce, it was a pain.

[Stan Calow]

John, I inferred that you just sprinkle some powder on top the CA. Thats what I tried, and it does instantly harden. It does gets hot! There is still surface prep to clean up and polish the "scab", as it will be white and rough. A thick layer of CA will need time to cure under the hard white surface. Its not as clean as the spray accelerant, but I do like that you dont have the smell of solvents from spray accelerant.

Ken, it was a musical instrument site at which I came across this. I also found a discussion of this at a Popular Mechanics site, which implied it could be used as a finishing technique. Not sure there is an advantage there.