Gorilla Glue + Baking Soda = ???

E

Eight Trigrams

Joined
Sep 10, 2006
Messages
226
I recently purchased a 15" Villager AK off the DOTD. I love the knife, but its horn handle has a rather large crack in it. I read on this forum somewhere a while back that someone here used super glue to fix horn cracks, and so I did what I always do and looked it up on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate

When added to baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), cyanoacrylate glue forms a hard, lightweight filler/adhesive (baking soda is first used to fill a gap then the adhesive is dripped into the baking soda). This works well with porous materials that the glue doesn't work well with alone. This method is sometimes used by aircraft modelers to assemble or repair polystyrene foam parts. Note that the reaction between cyanoacrylate and baking soda is very exothermic (heat producing) and also produces noxious vapors.
Click to expand...

So I'm sitting here with some baking soda and a couple tubes of Gorilla Glue and wondering if anyone else has tried this before. Anyone?
 
Gorilla Glue "foams up" and expands when it dries, cyanoacrylate glue (Crazy Glue) does not. Try some on something else other than your Khukri handle to observe the results for yourself first. If you are going to use the Gorilla Glue on the handle (I wouldn't) you probably won't need any baking soda "filler".
 
Mark is correct. Gorilla Glue is a polyurethane glue, not a CA. Unless, of course, it's the Gorilla Glue-brand super glue.
 
For a large crack, I would put some superglue in it initially to wick into the smallest cracks. Then when it's dry, follow up with some epoxy. You can tint the epoxy with model paint, or epoxy colorant from Texas knifemakers supply.

Steve
 
I know this is dragging up an old post, but recently I was camping with several friends that all happen to be Veterans, and, stories started flying after dinner the second night.
The one I see applying here is that one guy was around when repairman for aircraft showed up at a check point with a 5 lb bag of white powder. After the initial hub-bub, they explained the powder was baking soda, and they used it with super glue as described here to do quick fixes on carbon fiber aircraft (wings, I believe).
I came home and tested it out, and with CA's it really does make a STRONG patch\repair.
Just another $0.02,albeit 2nd hand.
 
It does work well for repairing guitar nuts. Its cures really hard. You can use a file or sandpaper to work it down and a hacksaw blade works well for cutting grooves. Ive used it for plugging holes in surfboards too. There are many uses for it. You can even add milled fibers to it to strengthen it. Clean the surfaces with acetone before the repair and it will wet and adhere much better.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top