Saturday, November 17, 2007

Dry Glue, Wet Glue

Once the epoxy had time to set, it was time for some more photos.

This is the front view of the styrene strip I glued into the main body. It's a little more clear from this photo how it will help support the ribbed styrene that I cut earlier



With that out of the way, I spent a little more time cleaning up the back ring for the main body. Just sanding down some putty and getting it ready to be glued to the front.



The final thing I did for this session was to glue the ring to the main body. The halves didn't fit together perfectly, so I had to hold them in place as the glue set. The instructions recommend using CA glue (superglue), but I don't like the stuff. Not only does it tend to glue your fingers together, but it doesn't allow for small adjustments once the pieces are pressed together. Basically, when the two surfaces touch, they're done. I prefer a five minute epoxy. That gives a big enough window of time to allow you to make sure the pieces are all lined up properly. But it's not so long that you're sitting there holding the pieces together for the entire evening.

So this picture shows the two halves glued together. I put tape around it just to hold it in place while it does a final cure. This was about seven minutes after I applied the glue, so it's pretty much set. The tape is just to make sure.

No comments: