The last job of the day has been glueing up. During the week I have been machining the components for a garden bird feeder. This however in not your normal bird feeder, it stands over half a meter high and is in the style of a three tier Chinese temple. The next stage of the project required the glueing together of some of the thicker components ready for moulding tomorrow. I could have started with a thicker stock of timber, but over the years I've found laminating timber up to the size required builds in a stability, which is of greater need in an outdoor project like this one. The sections I was working with although to large still required four of my large 'G'cramps to give a good even pressure. As I mentioned this was the last job of the day, and this was for no other reason than I knew it was a nasty sticky job that would end as usual with me in a foul mood,cleaning glue from every area of the workshop.
To start with I was useing Cascamite, which is a great adhesive and hard to match for exterior work, however it has to be carefully mixed from its powder form with cold water. Having left this the glueing up to the end of the day I was in a hurry and as a result my first batch had too much water in it, making it too runny with lots of lumps. After consigning it to the bin I took a deep breath and started again. The next batch was a great improvement, Cascamite should have the consistency of full cream milk for laminating work, and double cream when useing it on joints.
It doesn't matter how long I spend preparing the working area covering the bench with paper, setting the cramps to the correct size and clearing away any unnessary tools, as soon as the glue is applied my fingers stick to everything, packing for the cramps just seems to disappear and the working area is transformed into one unholy mess.
And how did the glue up go for me today? I have to say it all went surprisingly well......that is untill I upended my full glue pot into the tool well of my bench.
