# Tell me about CA and durability.



## soundman (Sep 12, 2012)

I've been fiddling with pens and stuff for nearly 10 years now, appart from the lathe being silent for months at a time.

I use a couple of different finishes and I am happy with what I can do with CA.

I know thet many consider CA to be THE finish for top shelf pens.

What I am not happy about is what I don't know.

This is because we use a product for a purpose other than what it was designed for.

I am sure there people out there that where on the bleeding edge when CA finishing first took off that have some long term experience of the finish and perhaps have done some "scientific testing".

What I am concerned about is the long term viability of CA as a finish.

The artists of the past I am sure thaught some of their finishes and colours where pretty damn good, but, the Sisteen Chappel would look like rubbish it it was not restored, Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles has been falling appart since the Ausie government baught it in the 70's, and there are plenty of fancy violins that look like pieces of old tat and would have been tossed away if they did not have a famous name on them.

So dish me the truth on CA.
How does it stand up to UV?
Any problems with it , flaking, going milky or changing colour?
Does it cop moisture? I have not put a CA finished pen thru the wash to find out.
I expect it will chip like any other hard finish.

Whats the go.

cheers


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## Texatdurango (Sep 13, 2012)

Well, I can only speak back five years to mid 2007 but here are my answers based on half a dozen or so pens I made in 2007 with CA finishes that I still have lying around.....



soundman said:


> ......So dish me the truth on CA.
> How does it stand up to UV? Whatever damage can be done from sunlight coming through a window would be the extent I could speak to but I've never noticed anything
> 
> Any problems with it , flaking, going milky or changing colour? No, nothing, they look as good today as the day I made them five years ago.  I do clean them now and then with Novus #3, don't know if it helps much but it surely doesn't hurt.
> ...


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## 1080Wayne (Sep 13, 2012)

Well there are probably a few things we do know about its durability . It will usually outlast all of the metal platings that you can pair it with , with the possible exceptions of Ti gold , chrome , rhodium and maybe black titanium . Some acrylic resins e.g. Plexiglas (polymethylmethacrylate) have excellent UV stability , so it is possible that cyanoacrylate does also .

Lastly I had a friend put one of my first CA finished ones through the wash . After I cleaned the ink up , it looked fine , even though I would bet that the finish was not nearly as good as what I put on now . The barrel ends were certainly not CA sealed , as I would do today . And would you believe that my wife repeated the experiment a few months later ? with essentially the same result .


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## rsulli16 (Sep 13, 2012)

another 2 cents worth,
i dropped a pen on my front steps and it rained that night. it would  have been fine except that i found the pen by stepping on it. so the damage from my not so svelt self and size nines apart, the rest of it was nice and shiney.   
Sulli


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## 1080Wayne (Sep 13, 2012)

A few thoughts on chipping . As neither George or I ever drop our pens on concrete , I will look elsewhere for relevant data .

 If you take a bushing which has been coated many times with CA during application of the finish to several pens , allow the CA to cure for a week or two , place the bushing on a smooth concrete or other hard surface , tap it all around the circumference with a hammer (hard enough that it will bring out certain words if applied to your thumb , but not hard enough to turn it black) , you will end up with a very flexible thin CA tube , not a bunch of flakes . Wood being generally much softer than steel , I would think there is only a remote chance of it flaking off . There is also a much greater mechanical bond with wood than with steel .

And if someone deems one of my pens to be as worthy of restoration as the Sistine chapel , I will be happy !


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## Texatdurango (Sep 13, 2012)

Texatdurango said:


> ......
> I expect it will chip like any other hard finish. Don't know, *I can honestly say I have never dropped one of my pens.*


Let me elaborate on the above comment.........  This comment pertained to the half dozen or so pens mentioned in the post only NOT all my pens.

GOD knows I have dropped my share of pens, dropped a few out of pockets, have sent a few speeding towards the floor at 123.571 mph (that's 198.868 kilometers per hour) while buffing them and had dozens roll off of or damaged on the workbench.

The point is that CA is a durable finish, probably about the strongest around.


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## gbpens (Sep 13, 2012)

When I started making pens 13 years ago I thought I had stumbled on a miracle finish called CA. After all, what could be harder than glue? I began using it on every pen including some buckeye burl that had only pencil line spalt so the wood was a nice cream color. I sold such a pen at work to a co-worker. Imagine my shock when a few weeks later when I saw much of the lower barrel and some of the top had turned a dirty grey! This lady used hand cream a dozen of times during the day and it apparaently had built up on the surface. I asked if I could take the pen home and clean it up for her. When I got it to my shop I found that the build up was on top of bare wood! Something in the hand cream had acted as a solvent on the CA. Since then I only use CA as a sealer/base coat with other "finishes" on top of the CA.


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## 1080Wayne (Sep 13, 2012)

gbpens said:


> When I started making pens 13 years ago I thought I had stumbled on a miracle finish called CA. After all, what could be harder than glue? I began using it on every pen including some buckeye burl that had only pencil line spalt so the wood was a nice cream color. I sold such a pen at work to a co-worker. Imagine my shock when a few weeks later when I saw much of the lower barrel and some of the top had turned a dirty grey! This lady used hand cream a dozen of times during the day and it apparaently had built up on the surface. I asked if I could take the pen home and clean it up for her.  When I got it to my shop I found that the build up was on top of bare wood! Something in the hand cream had acted as a solvent on the CA. Since then I only use CA as a sealer/base coat with other "finishes" on top of the CA.



If the hand cream buildup was patchy , it is also possible that you had sanded through the CA finish , as I have done many times .


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## Ruby pen turning (Sep 13, 2012)

I had a lady loose the final on a .30 cal bullet pen I made for her. She told me it had been through the washer. When I got the pen there was a dent or two in the wood/CA but other then that the wood covered with CA looked good as new.


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## triw51 (Sep 13, 2012)

My two cents I use a CA finish on my wood pens.  A few weeks ago I was at a gun and knife show in Phoenix and one of the pens I sold was brough back.  It had been dropped in the gravel parking lot and walked on.  The pen was scratched badly but no chips or cracks just scratches.  I was able to sand the scratches out and recoat it with CA.


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## philb (Sep 13, 2012)

It will chip if you hit it with a sharp point or on and edge of something. 

I've had a couple I dropped on concrete, and although it doesn't chip so you can feel it. It lifts like a milky air bubble below the surface. I little like if you squeeze a kit part in and you haven't got all the CA off the end of the blank


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## soundman (Sep 13, 2012)

This is exactly the sort of feed back I am looking for.

So genearlly CA seems to be pretty damn good....which is what I expected.

However as with anything, the measure of a product is not how wonderfull and marvelous it is , but what happens when it DOES fail.

Sanding thru a finish is a real problem for any type of finish...but we need to think about what is "thru" and how much film thickness is required.

I supose every finish or resin is permiable to something and probably more so in very fine film thicknesses.

We all know that acetone at least partly disolves CA, I wonder what other solvents and products effect it.

Some realy mundane things badly effect other glues and resins.........AND women's cosmetics can contain some products that are pretty agressive to other finishes.

cheers


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