smoking ca glue

[Hilel Salomon]

Have any of you folks come across this? I generally use epoxy and coffee to fill up holes, but on a couple of pieces of Cherry with large cracks, I used a mixture of coffee and sawdust to fill cracks and holes. When I put thin ca glue in, there was smoke rising from the mixture. I'm assuming that this is due to the acidic nature of the coffee, but I'm almost half a century away from my last class in Chemistry. I didn't feel threatened by this, but perhaps I should. In any case, I'd be grateful for an explanation.
Regards, Hilel.

[Dan Oliphant]

Hilel, I see that same reaction when I use a wood bark filler to fill in larger cracks. I believe the condition is caused by the volume of glue being applied at one time. I don't ever see this condition with small crack filling.

A method that will stop this reaction is as follows; partially fill the crack with the desired filler, apply CA glue to the crack, allow several minutes (I wait 5/10) then fill the remaining crack completly with your filler and re-glue. This will also reduce the possibility of your filler not receiving any glue and consiguently having voids.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Hilel that is a normal reaction. If I fill a large void it does the same thing. A chemistry major friend of mine said not to worry about it. Like Dan I don't get this on small cracks.

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Hilel, my take on this, is the CA is accelerated so much that some moisture does turn into steam, one of the reasons CA turns white and bubbly, and into a porous mess, yes coffee ground can do it so can punky wood, and other materials as well.

[John Shuk]

I accidentally dripped some thin ca on a Home Depot receipt and it smoked and left a little scorch mark. The I did it a few more times on purpose for entertainment. I chalked it up to heat as a byproduct of the chemical reaction magnified by heat sensitive paper.

[Steve knight]

spilled 1/2 a bottle on my mat and man talk about smoke. had to vacate the shop for a bit. that vapor is nasty.

[Doug Miller]

Coffee is an accelerator for CA. The smoke is from the accelerated setting of the CA so fast that the thermic reaction causes some of the moisture to escape as steam. Only problem is that this steam also contains some of the chemicals contained in the glue. Therefore, it causes eye and lung irritation. DAMHIKT

[Jim Becker]

That "smoke"/fumes is what fingerprints are often fixed with...and yes, it's nasty. Be sure to have good ventilation.