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.
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.
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
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
:idea: 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.
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
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.
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
It seems one of the biggest concerns with using the tip top glue is burning the cane. And I think most of this is caused by using more heat than is actually necessary. I’ve managed to overcome this problem by using a brass alchohol lamp (the kind Darryl Whitehead uses and sells through Golden Witch). It burns clean, and at a much lower temperature than those propane torches. Also, make sure you use just a tiny amount of the glue. What I do is melt just a little bit of glue onto the tip of the blank, then heat the tip-top with the lamp (wearing gloves, btw), and slide the blank into the tip top. Then if I need to adjust the tip top, I just heat it up a little and rotate it to the right position. Hope this helps.
100% what Joe said…In colder temps the epoxy will separate far easier from metal than will the heat applied glues…I don’t put any glue inside the tip top…I do however wrap sand paper around a tooth pick and swipe that around a few revolutions inside the tip top. To add a bit rougher surface for the glue to adhere to… just some thoughts…
The only thing I would add is that I like 5 minute epoxy. The advantage I see is that the 5 minute stuff can be made brittle and removed with heat that isn’t hot enough to compromise the blank’s integrity. Rod bond, however is great stuff. It isn’t coming off. The down side is if you have to ever replace the tip top, rodbond will require cutting off the blank at the tip, and 5 minute epoxy can be removed, but won’t come off until you want it to.
However, I guess I haven’t fished long enough to need to replace a tip top yet. Usually, with the rods I’ve seen, if the tiptop needs replaced, the tip is broken anyway. So it isn’t that big of an issue.
When I moved from California to Arizona all my rods had the TipTops falling off!
Seems the warmer weather here in Arizona would melt the hot melt ferrule cement I had used. Went to the 5-minute epoxy and haven’t had a problem since.
I DO NOT use the slow-drying variety epoxy for the same reason ol’ blue doesn’t use Rod bond. With 5-minute you can replace the tiptop - slow drying you break it off!
Had to laugh when I read this post!! If you heat up the glue till it burns, and then blow out the fire … blow gently and over the table NOT your lap, especially if you’re wearing shorts!! Burning glue CONTINUES to burn on bare legs, until slapped out! Don’t need to ask why I know this, but I do wear jeans now while rod building!!! :shock:
Why on EARTH would you heat up the glue to the point that it actually starts to burn??!! Don’t BURN the glue, MELT the glue. Heat it up just enough that you can “spread” a little bit onto the tip of the blank. And again, use a heat source that is just hot enough to melt the glue w/out burning it or the blank itself.
Regards,
Joe Martin
Salem, OR
P.S. The alchohol lamps are pretty cheap (the glass ones are only like $10 and if you can find them in an antique store, the brass ones should only run you about $15-20), and they work just great.
I accidently burned mine, early on in my rod building challanges…before I knew about the flash point of tip top glue or alcohol burners (from experience DON’T use a candle for your heat source!!) or wearing jeans while building. The learning curve is especially wide from my vantage point! Thank goodness I found FAOL before I burned down the house! (PS … I’m still forbidden from all burning things… sharp things are close behind) :roll:
lol, yup, me too Betty! Actually, I first tried using the propane torch. Turns out, a blazing hot torch is not the best heat source for melting tip top glue :roll: Works GREAT for ruining bamboo splines, though (tried using one for straightening out my nodes, didn’t work so well).
:shock: OMG!!! You tried to straighten out your own nodes? I thought that’s where Ear/Nodes/Throat guys came in!
(I’m sorry, I couldn’t (but should have) restrained myself!)
