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Old 06-06-2012, 05:24 PM
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Better Elmer's Tip

I'd been using small syringes and a 15 gauge needle whenever I wanted to dispense a small amount of glue. The problem is that for some reason after a couple of uses the plunger would start getting stuck (I'd wash the syringe immediately after use, but regardless it still happened). Eventually it became so stuck that the plunger just became lodged within the syringe. This happened with two syringes already so I gather it would happen with a third regardless. Rather than purchasing and discarding syringes I took the following approach and modified my Elmer's Glue bottle. I used the 15 gauge blunt tipped steel needle and sawed off the plastic luer lock cap from the end, leaving only a bit of it. Then I added a glob of hot glue to the tip of my Elmer's Glue bottle's cap along the inside and plunged the needle through it and out to the other end (while the glue was still hot and taking care not to plug up the ends). I filed down the interior white plastic of the bottle as it would not allow the cap to screw downwards otherwise. It produces a really neat result when applying the glue but takes a little bit of squeezing power to get it flowing. A 14 gauge needle may produce better results although I can't say whether or not it will pass through the opening.
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Better Elmer's Tip-dscn0293r.jpg   Better Elmer's Tip-dscn0294r.jpg   Better Elmer's Tip-dscn0295r.jpg   Better Elmer's Tip-dscn0296r.jpg  
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  #2  
Old 06-06-2012, 05:38 PM
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Nice work. I tried to do something similar with Aleene's recently but it was too thick to flow through without some *serious* squeezing. But I think my needle was a bit smaller and the glue a little old and therefore thickened up.
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Old 06-06-2012, 09:13 PM
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Hmm cool idea. I might try this.
Strangely it reminds me of when preparing a bottle for my kids when they were babies. During the night I poured some milk into a bottle and screwed the lid on. Unfortunately wrong bottle/lid combination lead to me realising the baby bottle lid fitted the 4pt milk bottle perfectly. Although the 4pt bottle had a handle I decided against feeding 4 pts of cold milk to a baby!
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Old 06-06-2012, 10:39 PM
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I suspect that because you have air in the bottle the glue is thickening or drying out

I use a glue syringe that you can purchase at any hobby shop or at some craft stores for about $1. It comes with two tips but I use the smaller one for all of my modeling. The smaller tip has a bore of .026 inches the wire in the photo is used to clean out the tip if I do not store it correctly. When I am finished using it I place the syringe tip down in a small container of water. If you do this all the time the tip never clogs and the glue never dries out. When you fill the syringe make sure that you get absolutely all the air out. Any air trapped in the syringe will cause the glue spurt out rather then flow out and also to thicken.

The syringe in the photo is a couple of years old and I have built 4 models with it.

Jim Nunn
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Old 06-07-2012, 05:08 AM
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Another top tip. I bought one of these recently when ordering some other bits online. I have yet to use it as I was thinking that having to empty it everytime would be a pain, but the idea of dropping it into a tub of water is shear genius! Thankyou!
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Old 06-07-2012, 02:21 PM
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@JimNunn: The problem I was experiencing wasn't having the tip dry out. The tip never clogged on me, what made the problem happen was the syringe itself (which I flushed out with water immediately after use). This is likely a result of the fact that I was using a 1cc syringe. It's quite thin and even if you flush it there's likely a microscopic film of glue left along the walls that builds up. On your syringe the effect is probably far less dramatic, it could also be of a different plastic. The glue isn't thickening any more dramatically than from being inside the Elmer's bottle itself. Plastic breathes so the glue is always under influence from air particles. More importantly though I cut the interior plastic so it would be flush against the bottom of the needle to mitigate the exposure to air.
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Old 06-07-2012, 03:06 PM
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I use syringes from the hobby shop quite a bit and had similar problems, even with the ones I used to dispense light oil rather than glue. What I found was the rubber "piston" was swelling up and sticking to the plastic body. I never really found a solution, I just buy some new syringes every few months.
Wayne
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Old 06-09-2012, 05:26 PM
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I posted pics on here awhile back of a setup that works great for me... I found rather by accident that the "gluing tips" from Testors (which are made to slip fit onto the tip of a model airplane glue tube) would fit very nicely right onto the tip of a 'medicine measuring syringe' that I usually get for free every time my daughter needs a prescription... just snap the gluing tip right onto the syringe, draw the glue up into it, wipe the tip off, and presto you're ready to go.

I always squirt the glue right back into the bottle when I'm done, and then THOROUGHLY wash the tip and syringe out under warm running water... draw water up into the barrel by pulling the syringe back several times and squirt it back out... disassemble and wash everything thoroughly again after the thing's been flushed by pulling the plunger back at least 3-4 times...

What's nice about the gluing tips is, they are rather wide until they neck down to a fine tip at the very end-- this presents MUCH less resistance to thick glue than a long, slender needle does... and it's safer to boot...

Works great! OL JR
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Old 06-09-2012, 06:08 PM
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I went looking for syringes I could use for gluing and I can't find a one. I live in the San Francisco bay and none of the hobby shops or craft stores have any nor did they know where I could find any. So I guess I'm back to tooth picks and white glue on scrape paper.
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Old 06-10-2012, 07:04 PM
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I use the syringes that came with my ink refill kit. I have a continuous ink system so don't need the syringes. They work perfectly.

Rusty
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