Quick-cure Epoxy

To All:

There are times when you need to put something together fast, often
while HOLDING the parts in positionby HAND, such as when you are
making a jig or fixture. Many times the fixture is made of whatever
wood you happened to have available.... 'good' scrape, if you know
what I mean. But the jig or fixture itself is NOT scrap -- you want
it to hold up, often for a span of YEARS. That's when you reach for
whatever quick-curing EPOXY you happen to have on hand.

I've previously mentioned that I use several different adhesives,
selecting them according to need, cost, availability, temperature and
so on. STRENGTH is never an issue since ALL modern adhesives are
stronger (in shear) than the softwoods normally used to build an
airplane (or even a jig :-)

If you will go to...
http://search.harborfreight.com/cpis...?keyword=epoxy...
....you will see several epoxies, including Item# 65048 and Item#
92665. The latter is often on sale for 99cents and is super-simple to
use, thanks to its 1:1 mixing ratio.

If you remember to apply the adhesive to BOTH surfaces... and give
them a couple minutes of 'open' time, they even work on hardwoods.

Don't take my word for any of this. Do your own tests and base your
opinion on that.

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If you've done any composite work at all, you're probably familiar
with 'ice cream' sticks. Retailers call them 'mixing' sticks, 'hobby'
sticks and so on, and they often turn up in the Toy Dept... so if the
clerk gives you that blank look and sez they don't carry anything like
that, don't take it as gospel.

Tongue depressors fall into the same category and those which fall out
of date can usually be found for sale as new-surplus, from such
outfits as American Science & Surplus. (A tongue depressor is just a
BIG 'ice cream' stick.)

I don't know what these sticks are made of; birch or poplar at a
guess. But it's a dense hardwood that works very well as 'curbing'
around metal fittings. That is, with the fitting in place, you
prepare a hardwood 'curb' around the fitting. Do a proper job of it
and the 'curbing' will provide such a grip on the fitting that it
serves to hold the fitting in place, allowing you to drill the holes
for the fasteners. A fast-curing epoxy such as those mentioned above
appears to be the ideal adhesive for this kind of work.

-R.S.Hoover