Am I the only one who has trouble using tip top glue?

[Harebear]

I'm using the melt and use type of tip top glue and this stuff is tough to use. It seems to cool very fast. I also had a very hard time getting any into the opening of the tip top. Here's what I ended up doing, tell me if I messed up (but it did hold). I rolled a rice grain size piece of glue and pushed it into the tip top opening, then coated the blank tip with glue. I then heated them both and pushed them together. Here's teh funny thing, I had to hold the tip top onto the blank for about 15 seconds because as I pushed it all the way on, if I let go too quick, it would kinda slide off, like there was some kind ogf pressure inside the tip top. Am I an idiot, or is this some kind of heat, expansion, physics thing.

Sincerely, your slightly neurotic, but well meaning, neighborhood rod building newbie, and fly fishing nutcase.

Harebear

[Orthoman]

Be careful heating the tip of the rod as it may burn or break. Some rods have a coating like shellac or urethane and it will melt. I found this out when I was burning off the tags from the guide wraps.

I hold the tip top with a pair of needle holders/hemostats and then heat the tip top with an alcohol lamp until it is pretty hot. At the same time I heat the adhesive stick until it starts to burn. Then I blow out the fire on the adhesive and apply adhesive to the hole in the tip top - then quickly add a little to the rod blank and shove them together and rotate it into place. You can trap air inside the tip top and it will push apart. I think heating the tip top tends to draw a little adhesive up into the tip top.

Go slow and it should work out just fine.

If you use too much adhesive, it bunches up and flow out onto the blank and exterior of the tip top. I find it hard to remove. You really only need a very small amount. The adhesive sticks that you typically purchase would probably last for several hundred or thousand rods.

Hope this helps.

Good luck.
Orthoman

[clyde holmes]

Bear, I had trouble on my build with tip glue like your trying to use. Toasted the end of tip, so got a new tip-top and used epoxy to glue it in. Worked easier and shouldnt come off

[xfishcop]

I have made a tool to help get the glue into the tip top. It is a large sewing needle with the eye end pushed into a cork. I then heat the hot melt glue and get a layer on the needle. While it is still warm or reheated I use the needle to work some glue into the tip top. You can also shave thin slices off the stick of glue and push a sliver into the tip and heat it in the tip. I put some from a hot stick on the rod tip and put them together. Sometimes if the trapped air can't get out of the tip top it will try to push off, rotating it into position slowly usually works.
Hope that this helps.
Dick xfishcop

[mr. blur]

why bother. just use some of the rod bond you mixed up to affix yer reelseat and grip.

[taoski]

I've never used tip top glue. I stick to 5-min epoxy, but rod bond as blur suggested would be just as good. The only point of the heat-up glue is that you can remove the tip if you ever need to do repairs. But epoxy and rod bond will release with a little heat. Installing the tip top should be the quickest, easiest task of building a rod-- keep it simple.

[cross creek]

You didn't say whether this is a bamboo, glass, or graphite rod. The point is that, if you use epoxy on a bamboo or old glass rod, it may require more heat to remove the tip top in the future than the rod can withstand. More than one builder has been surprised by a projectile tip top and a burned, shredded, mushroomed rod tip--picture one of the old cartoon characters with an exploding cigar in their mouth and blackened face! The same thing can happen with watersealed ferrules. One easy way to use the heat and melt adhesive (many makers use the amber colored stuff designed for arrowheads) is to shave off a few little pieces (doesn't take much), stick them down in the tip top, and heat the tip top (holding it with hemostats or pliers) until the glue melts. Then stick the tip top quickly on the rod tip and hold in place for a few seconds. The reason your tip top was trying to come off was pressure built up inside--you coated the rod tip and the inside of the tip top, so there was too tight a seal and the tiny little bit of air inside, heated, needed to get out.
-CC

[Harebear]

After it tried to push off , I did hold the tip top in place with gentle pressure for 15 seconds and it held. Is it ok to leave it as is? or do I have an accident waiting to happen with air trapped inside my tip top?
I'm full of silly questions.

[cross creek]

Once cooled in place, you're fine. Any trapped air that was still under pressure after cooling has long since found a way out or is such little volume/pressure that it doesn't matter--just giving you tips for easier installation next time. Also don't want to leave you with the impression that you can't use epoxy with bamboo--it just requires a lot more care when removing and very slow heating--helps to use weaker epoxy, like the new one minute or three minute types. I'm pretty happy with the stuff archers use on arrows, though, so will stick to that for now. One advantage with the melt-type adhesive is that you can reheat and adjust it if you get it a little off center. Epoxy has to be cleaned out and re-done completely after applying heat. On heavy duty rods, like saltwater stuff, I would use higher strength epoxy, though, for the little bit of added security it gives.
-CC

[Wednesday Caster]

I'd second the epoxy. Seems to work fine for me without the added concerns of burnin' the tip.