cogbarry Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 Hey all, Thought I'd throw this one out there to get some opinions/facts. I am still building ball shells and haven't much experience with can or cylinder shells. I do plan on learning to make all kinds of shells but I am keeping busy with round shells. I have a WASP and I fuse my shells with Chinese time fuse. I use a passfire tube stuffed with black match and I seal my time fuse with hot glue. I prep the area first with wood glue. I then seal the time fuse in two steps of hot glue applications, one to fill the recess and one to fill the fuse washer. I keep hearing and reading criticisms on the use of hot melt and would appreciate suggestions.
AirCowPeacock Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 I avoid hotmelt, I use it as fireseal around timefuse after securing it with wood glue.
AirCowPeacock Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 What it comes down to for me is asthetics of shell before fired and the fact that it melts when hot, something that will happen multible times over the course of the shell's short life.
cogbarry Posted January 8, 2013 Author Posted January 8, 2013 Hmn, it doesn't show and only sees heat once.
AirCowPeacock Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 The fuse is hot too, so is the break. I've never seen a failure I thought was do to hot glue melting. But since I got off hotglue, I have felt much more proud of my shells.
cogbarry Posted January 8, 2013 Author Posted January 8, 2013 That's great but I was looking for suggestions/alternatives. I'm not sure how else to glue my TF to my WASPed shells.
Mumbles Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 It's the recess from cutting away the pasted paper around the fuse hole that I think might raise an issue. I really don't see a very good alternative without cutting away. This would be more of an issue with larger shells, and thus thicker pasted layers. I suppose there is epoxy with some sort of filler, but that's really just an alternative. In place of a hot glue washer, I've seen glue soaked string wrapped around the base of the fuse into kind of a cone or a crown. This both provides fireblocking and support, and possibly makes it look a little more traditional. If it's an aesthetics issue, you can always lay pasted paper or gummed tape up over the time fuse and glue support. There's really no worry of the hot melt yielding a failure from what it experiences during functioning. It's only really when attaching comets (attaching them poorly at least) that I ever see any hot glue related failures.
dagabu Posted January 8, 2013 Posted January 8, 2013 Cog, never mind the naysayers, hot glue is used extensively with wasped shells. You can try wood glue like they say, it takes a lot longer to dry but is not affected by heat like hot glue is. You can also use both, hot glue to hold them and woos glue to seal them. -dag
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