Making a superglue chuck adapter for brass wheel

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Thanks for the reference, Jason

I regret that I must disagree with Bill Morris on some points.

MichaelG.

Re the point about fingers getting stuck together with superglue, I have found Superglue De-bonder from Tool Station or Screwfix works wonderfully

Roy

Chris at ClipSpring gives reference early on in his John Wilding Large Wheel Clock project to the late William Smith from the USA who perhaps did not originate but certainly popularised the use of a SuperGlue arbors in his series of clock making and tooling books.

Bill's books and videos are still available direct from the US and also from a UK outlet. Chris has expanded its use to fixture plates on the milling table to replace vacuum plates and magnetic equivalents. You will notice that in Chris's videos he still uses Bill's special concoction paste for metal polishing.

Bill suggests that standard single applicant SuperGlue goes off better at an air interface. (At the time of his authorship twin pack SuperGlue might not have been readily available). Bill postulates that having the grooves in the end face of the arbor increases the net length of air interface and therefore makes the bond stronger. Once stuck the finished wheel does take some removing and heat while recommended does have the effect of noxious fumes. I note the comment above that the grooves also perhaps allow 'squash distribution' of excess glue into the grooves to give a more flat/even fixing surface between the brass and the aluminium.

To answer the original question by TickTock and with apologies to the Grannies and their eggs : -

The arbor needs to be ideally the same diameter or ideally a bit less than the wheel OD being cut in order to allow the tooth cutter to pass through the brass and into the softer aluminium backing. The arbor's whole purpose is to provide support to the tooth cutting action.

The blank arbor should be mounted in the lathe chuck. (Once mounted it is not removed until the wheel is completely finished). After mounting the arbor, the grooves are cut into the end face. There is nothing magical about these but a 2-3mm gap (land) between grooves works OK and the depth can be similar. A rounded end cutter is a good profile to use cutting perpendicular to the arbor front surface. A hole is drilled into the centre of the arbor to be larger than the desired size of the finished hole in the wheel being cut.

Having cut both the grooves and the centre hole the arbor should be faced off. This removes any residual burrs that could 'push' the blank away from the surface and ensures that the face of the wheel blank will be axial to the lathe bed.

The arbor is slowly turned in the chuck and single pack SuperGlue is applied (not too excessively) onto the 'lands'. The chuck is stopped. The oversize wheel blank, having been degreased and having an undersized central hole is held in place by hand on the point of a centre in the tailstock and the tailstock is slid (not wound) to impact the blank onto the arbor face. The tailstock is locked in place and the handwheel wound quickly to apply pressure to the wheel blank against the face of the arbor and then the tailstock adjuster is locked in place. After 5 minutes the wheel will be fixed solidly. Some would recommend having the chuck slowly turning while this placement is done.

The blank is now turned to the specified OD for the wheel being cut. Cuts should not be aggressive as they will be applying a shearing force to the bond.

Once the wheel is cut to size the edge of the wheel is marked with a Sharpie pen or similar and then three adjacent teeth are cut back and forth until the marker inking disappears. This defines the depth of cut and the cutter now needs to be locked at this depth. The remaining teeth can now be cut and once all teeth are finished, the final action is to drill and ream the hole in the blank to size. This ensures concentricity of all processes in the wheel manufacture. (There is an immense feeling of relief when the final tooth is cut and it is the same size as the others ... or alternately the neighbour's garden will receive an aluminum/brass addition for its Gnomes to play with).

Assuming success, the only problem now is getting the newly cut wheel off the arbor and heat or a solvent will be needed for this with due respect to any fumes.

The arbor can be stored for future use but will need an initial facing to clean off the prior use glue and grooves before repeating the process.

Hope that helps TickTock (and any others not yet elevated to Granny status).

Alan

Seems OK except for this bit? (my underlining)

The arbor needs to be ideally the same diameter or ideally a bit less than the wheel OD being cut in order to allow the tooth cutter to pass through the brass and into the softer aluminium backing. The arbor's whole purpose is to provide support to the tooth cutting action.

From me while waiting for the next draining of goose fat from the tin...

Hi NDIY, this is a difficult one to describe ...

The cutters will be PP Thornton or similar and the profile of the cutter 'side on' is the shape of the tooth and then it thickens out for strength. If the arbor is larger than the blank the cutting action back and forth across the wheel will see more resistance as it meets more aluminium that it needs to do.

Likewise if the arbor is less than the diameter than the lowest point of the tooth there is no back resistance as the cutter passes through the brass only and providing the arbor is not dramatically less than the tooth depth will still provide good support for the cutting action.

If the arbor to be identical in diameter to the wheel OD so it gives full support, does not resist the cutter more than necessary and given the two metal sandwich will help reduce cutter burrs.

I still tend to keep it just a bit less than the full wheel diameter so I can see what is going on with the rear face of the blank and know that the cutter is going all the way through.

This probably needs a picture to make sense, I'll knock one up and post in a minute.

Alan

Apologies for the size and the generic nature. The side view of the cutter is also generic but if the arbor is larger than the blank you will get the 'thicker' section of the cutter impacting on the arbor.

...If you do really feel the need to cut clock wheels as crudely as this then make it a bit easier and simply screw the wheel blank to the wooden "arbor" with screws thru the places which will be eliminated in crossing out.....

..........Cynoacrylate can be readily freed on delicate clock parts by gently boiling in water for about 10 to 15 minutes, where on the glue suddenly gives up. If the parts are not delicate then a small flame from a lighter will suffice, usually.

One technique that seems to work quite well to stick flat parts down on a CNC mill, and also for wood routing, is this. Stick Good quality blue masking tape firmly to each surface. Apply superglue to one surface in dots, press the other surface firmly down on it. After cutting, peel the part off the tape - it's surprising how firmly the tape sticks over a large area, but it comes off quite easily when done. May work for turing too, maybe worth a try.

@Alan Wood, can you explain to me (a newbie to ME) why the tailstock must be slid and not wound when pushing the workpiece into contact with the arbor?

Thanks,

Mark

I've often used super-glue on my big lathe, the advantage being - I think - it's stronger than Shellac, comes in a convenient tube, and more likely to take big machine cutting stresses. The downside is breaking the bond after (ideally needs to be hotter than 100C), and not being able to edge the work on centre while the glue sets. Shellac overcomes the centring problem by setting slowly, but it's less convenient and the joint is much weaker than superglue.

Seems to me Superglue is the best general purpose adhesive, but Shellac takes the trick on a small lathe where the operator needs to nudge a delicate part to dead-centre, and isn't going to attack a delicate job with a roughing cutter. Otherwise, superglue is fine on a small lathe too. I can't think of a good reason for using Shellac on a big machine though?

Dave

Two replies : -

John thanks for your reply - I also use the masking tape and SuperGlue on my CNC table. I agree the blue or green tape has best adhesion. (There is quite a bit about this on John Saunders NYC CNC). I tried it for cutting wheels on an arbor and in this case the wheel and arbor diameters needed to match or it was possible for the wheel to be pressured by the cutting action and would 'tip' and loose adhesion. It was also difficult to not get a rotational moment on the edge of the wheel blank when truing the outer diameter to size. What helped both these was to tap the centre hole in the arbor and physically screw the wheel blank in place with the masking tape and super glue inhibiting the rotational movement when turning to size and the fliping when cutting. Clearly the tapped hole will be smaller than the wheel centre clearance hole so when finishing the wheel hole to size you need to drill deeper into the arbor to allow a machine reamer to achieve size. This is not a problem but needs to be considered.

Of late I have been cutting wheels on the CNC mill using both a fine end mill into the blank held horizontally and also with a conventional wheel cutter in the mill and the blank held vertically in an automated rotary mount in the A axis. Horizontally I have used the SuperGlue and masking tape method but have still used the conventional arbor technique in the A axis. Experiments continue but the results have been very good.

Mark thanks also for your question - nothing magic about sliding rather than winding. I just like to not dither speed wise with the glue sat there on the arbor and also a solid push into place flattens the glue film and the final winding of the tailstock finishes it off. So all about speed of action more than anything. Do 'have a go' and don't worry if you mess up one or two first attempts. It is all about learning (and playing) and the buzz of success when you achieve it. When you are learning there is no such thing as a dumb question only how dumb you are made to feel by the person answering. Feel free to contact me on direct mail if you wish.

Alan

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I would be genuinely interested to see the source of that idea ... Could you please quote a reference ?

Although 'superglue' is a much-used, and therefore largely meaningless term; in my limited understanding, the behaviour of cyanoacrylates is quite different to that stated.

My 'go to' source of information about such sticky subjects is:

'Adhesives in Engineering Design' by W.A. Lees

[ Bill Lees has a legendary status, way above Granny ]

His general description of Cyanoacrylates starts thus:

Perhaps the behaviour is very product-specific, but I think you will agree that the two 'models' differ greatly.

MichaelG.

Alan, thanks for your reply. I’ll give it a go soon!

Clockmaking and Modelmaking - Tools and Techniques by William Smith pages 14 to 20.

Bill refers to Eastman 910 as being the original source of glue which subsequently had a lapsed patent and morphed into other brand names. I assume he came across this and its application while employed as an engineer at Oak Ridge, TN.

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Thanks for that ... much appreciated.

MichaelG.

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Presumably this is the Patent:

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=US&NR=2768109A&KC=A&FT=D&ND=&date=19561023&DB=&locale=

The chemistry is beyond me, but perhaps others can comment.

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Edit: This may also be of interest:

https://www.permabond.com/2016/06/08/permabond-910-oldie-goodie/

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 26/12/2019 13:34:34

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Oops .. we probably need to find one of the earlier patents

MichaelG.

Super glue to hold thin parts has been around for a very long time, it was used in industry in 1982 when I started my apprenticeship. We made the mandrel from similar material to the part being made. we put the mandrel and part into the tempering oven set at 120c . the part seperated, and the mandrels soaked in acetone to clean off the glue and start again. So we had brass, steel and AL mandrels. Sometimes the mandrel was skimmed , depending on the setup. When cylindrical grinding, or surface grinding, it was important to have a fresh dressed sharp wheel that did not have too much width. The part needed to be cut as cool as possible.

I remember when we had some thin parts being made from Delrin, and it did not glue at all. So be careful when using the cyano holding method.

Neil

This might be the one: **LINK**

https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search?q=pn%3DUS2794788A

MichaelG.

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PostScript: The practical aspects of usage are covered nicely.

MichaelG.

Chris ...

You might find this of interest; if only for design inspiration

**LINK**

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Boley-Leinen-Watchmakers-8mm-Lathe-Wax-Chuck/264576295189

Noting that it is, of course, a traditional ‘Wax Chuck’ intended for use with Shellac

MichaelG.