Cyanoacrylate (CA) Glue for Rigging

[Justin P.]

1 hour ago, BobG said:

My wife is a talented pastel artist and she sprays her pastels with an artist fixative to help preserve them. Pastels are delicate because they tend to "shed" easily and, even after using the artist fixative, they have to be handled gently. I've used her fixative to spray the paper friezes before I glued them onto my Medway Longboat as Chuck recommends.

 

A similar spray-on fixative used in creating didactic materials, labels, etc, similar to how you describe with the Medway is this.    It has a good reputation, with derivatives and other solutions used for various conservation applications.  For those friezes it is perfect, I won't comment on its use in pastels or other artwork. 

[BobG]

29 minutes ago, wefalck said:

BobG, I don't know what's in your wife's fixative, so I cannot comment on it. The point is to not 'soak' a pastel or it will loose its character. With too much fixative, it will look like a gouache painting.

The spray fixative that she uses on her pastels is Sennelier Latour Pastel Spray Fixative and it's made in France. I've used it on the paper friezes for my Medway Longboat before cutting them out and gluing them onto the boat. The label says that it is "an alcohol and non-yellowing synthetic based resin fixative."

 

 

[BobG]

4 minutes ago, Justin P. said:

 

A similar spray-on fixative used in creating didactic materials, labels, etc, similar to how you describe with the Medway is this.    It has a good reputation, with derivatives and other solutions used for various conservation applications.  For those friezes it is perfect, I won't comment on its use in pastels or other artwork. 

That looks like another brand of the type of fixative that she uses. 

[wefalck]

Sennelier is one of the old paint dealers in Paris. They have been around for more than 130 years. However they don't actually say whats in their 'fixatif'. just resin and alcohols, which in fact sounds like shellac:

 

https://www.sennelier.fr/Fixatif-latour_fiche_4358.html

 

A few weeks ago I happened to visit their shop, which is a nice, traditional shop down by the Seine with a counter and behind lots of little drawers with goodies.

 

As someone noted above: don't blast the whole model (as some plastic modellers do) with something like this. I only use the lacquer to immobilise knots or splices and to coerce my springy model rope into real rope-like shapes, e.g. when hanging from belaying points:

 

 

Edited March 5, 2020 by wefalck

[Bob Cleek]

2 hours ago, BobG said:

Bob, do you do this for building card models? Would it also be good for paper friezes printed on ordinary 20# printer paper? It seems like that might be too messy for such thin paper and the spray artist fixative would be better suited for this.

 

 

Not "card models," per se, but it would work fine for them, too. sometimes I have need of a flat panel piece, or perhaps a thin combing somewhere. I use "card" (paper) wetted down with shellac. It can be shaped into curves and becomes stiff and impervious to moisture when the shellac dries. It can then be painted. It would be perfect for paper friezes printed on printer paper. I've had success lightly tacking very thin tissue paper to printer paper with "glue stick" and running the sheet through my printer to print small font letters, like a ship's name, then peeling off the tissue and applying it to the model and shellacking it. You need to test it first, though. Some inks (e.g. felt tipped pens) are alcohol-soluble and shellac will make them dissolve and run.

[wefalck]

My recent exploits of this technique: steering wheels laser-cut from 'Canson' paper (about 0.15 mm thick) and assembled into 3D-wheels using zapon lacquer ...

 

 

 

The major grid-spacing is 10 mm.

 

Cutting friezes and the likes would be no problem. I would soak them in lacquer, paint them in acrylics and then apply them.

[Bob Cleek]

3 hours ago, Justin P. said:

Ill just add one more thought about the use of Shellac.   I would tend to want to reserve Shellac for the wood finishes and rely on something else for the rigging.   The wholesale "spraying" of a completed model with a single concentration of Shellac just trips an alarm for me.   Shellac is not a barrier, and really is more a finish then a protectant.  IN fact its tendency to wick moisture (a main catalyst in acid degradation) is greater then that of wood itself.  Similarly, best practice would be to tailor the finish/protectant to the materials.   As a complex structure of mixed materials, I would probably take a different course of action.   That said, I am in no way saying that the practice as described above is wrong, just that my training gives me anxiety when I think about it.   This is where the advice and training of a real artifact/ship model conservator is more appropriate.   

Absolutely! I seal wood parts with shellac painted on before and during assembly. I never spray whole models with it!  I also use it sparingly to glue knots so they don't come undone and to mold rigging line into desired fixed positions, such as a fall coiled and hung on a beylaying pin. Nothing offends my eye like pinrails with stiff circular coils that look like cowboys' lariats. Real rope coils hang.naturally by gravity. Scale cordage doesn't do that naturally. You have to help it along.

 

I never apply shellac so thickly, or in so many coats, that it shows any glossy sheen, unless, of course, I am using it to represent varnished bright wood on the model. I that case, of course, I knock down the sheen to avoid a high gloss sheen in order to achieve a "scale gloss" appearance.

 

From my reading and first hand experience, shellac is a very effective moisture barrier. I've never heard of, nor seen it "wick moisture." One of its major uses at one time was as spark-proof electrical insulation. It wouldn't be much of an electrical insulating material if it soaked up moisture. Reports are the "wicking moisture" thing was a marketing scam perpetrated by the "wipe on" finish industry. See: http://www.woodworkstuff.net/shellac2.html 

Edited March 5, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[BobG]

3 hours ago, wefalck said:

I only use the lacquer to immobilise knots or splices and to coerce my springy model rope into real rope-like shapes, e.g. when hanging from belaying points:

That's a very nice looking boat, welfalck, and those steering wheels are excellent!

[BobG]

1 hour ago, Bob Cleek said:

I never apply shellac so thickly, or in so many coats, that it shows any glossy sheen, unless, of course, I am using it to represent varnished bright wood on the model. I that case, of course, I knock down the sheen to avoid a high gloss sheen in order to achieve a "scale gloss" appearance.

How do you prefer to knock down the sheen on the shellac when necessary? Do any of the shellac come in a matte finish to begin with?

[BobG]

3 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

I've had success lightly tacking very thin tissue paper to printer paper with "glue stick" and running the sheet through my printer to print small font letters, like a ship's name, then peeling off the tissue and applying it to the model and shellacking it

Chuck has done something very similar with tissue paper for making flags. I don't know if he applies shellac to them thought.

[Justin P.]

2 hours ago, BobG said:

How do you prefer to knock down the sheen on the shellac when necessary? Do any of the shellac come in a matte finish to begin with?

One way to knock down that sheen is to not use Shellac at all, but that's another conversation.   Nothing wrong with it, but if you don't like the finish try something else. 

[Justin P.]

4 hours ago, Bob Cleek said:

From my reading and first hand experience, shellac is a very effective moisture barrier. I've never heard of, nor seen it "wick moisture." One of its major uses at one time was as spark-proof electrical insulation. It wouldn't be much of an electrical insulating material if it soaked up moisture. Reports are the "wicking moisture" thing was a marketing scam perpetrated by the "wipe on" finish industry. See: http://www.woodworkstuff.net/shellac2.html 

 

We might be getting our wires crossed, Im not saying its bad.   Just that in the context of coating rigging I probably wouldnt do it.   All my available literature on the qualities of Shellac as a sealant and finish show it be an unreliable moisture barrier or sealant (from a purely conservation perspective).   One quick quote: "Shellac, a soft coating, is highly susceptible to water damage, best known for the white rings left by drinking glasses."    This would be the moisture wicking quality Im speaking of, it will absorb moisture from the air and degrade over time as well as it will absorb moisture it is in contact with.  9/10 scenarios its perfectly fine and does the job well, but for its application on cotton rigging - meh.  

 

In order to get a truly protective finish, you'd have to apply two or three good coats and to me the scale and detail of models just don't support that.  While it can resist the occasional splash or spill, its long-term ability to protect diminishes with age.       With so many other alternatives out there, Im simply saying that it wouldn't be my first choice.   

 

Thats an interesting point about the electrical though.   Makes me wonder if it was used as moisture barrier or as an electrical insulator.   

 

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Justin P.

[Bob Cleek]

1 hour ago, Justin P. said:

 

We might be getting our wires crossed, Im not saying its bad.   Just that in the context of coating rigging I probably wouldnt do it.   All my available literature on the qualities of Shellac as a sealant and finish show it be an unreliable moisture barrier or sealant (from a purely conservation perspective).   One quick quote: "Shellac, a soft coating, is highly susceptible to water damage, best known for the white rings left by drinking glasses."    This would be the moisture wicking quality Im speaking of, it will absorb moisture from the air and degrade over time as well as it will absorb moisture it is in contact with.  9/10 scenarios its perfectly fine and does the job well, but for its application on cotton rigging - meh.  

 

In order to get a truly protective finish, you'd have to apply two or three good coats and to me the scale and detail of models just don't support that.  While it can resist the occasional splash or spill, its long-term ability to protect diminishes with age.       With so many other alternatives out there, Im simply saying that it wouldn't be my first choice.   

 

Thats an interesting point about the electrical though.   Makes me wonder if it was used as moisture barrier or as an electrical insulator.   

 

 

No, it's a very good moisture barrier. There's no question that standing water on it will cloud its appearance. That moisture soaks in to a certain degree, but it seems only on the surface of the shellac. It doesn't penetrate into the wood. If left to its own devices, those cloudy rings will disappear when the moisture evaporates, which may take a few days. This problem occurs when it is used as a table top furniture finish. (Ask my wife how I know this!  ) On the other hand, I don't anticipate anybody placing a wet cocktail glass on any of my ship models. 

 

I wouldn't soak rigging line in shellac, either. I don't see much point in "soaking" rigging in shellac to "seal" it against moisture, and particularly not on cotton line. (Synthetic polymer line shouldn't absorb any moisture at all, in any event.)  I use shellac on rigging line as an adhesive to "set' knots in place or stiffen rigging line in order to form it into desired shapes. A thin application of shellac for that works very well.

 

On the other hand, wood and card stock is sealed very well from moisture when a coating of shellac is applied and soaks into it. This I know not only "from the literature," but also from experience. "Bilayer membranes containing non-plasticized shellac exhibit low water vapor permeability (WVP), from 0.89 to 1.03 × 10⁻¹¹ g m⁻¹ s⁻¹ Pa⁻¹. A high value of contact angle (≈92°) and a low liquid water adsorption rate (26 × 10⁻³ μL s⁻¹) indicate that these barrier layers have a quite hydrophobic surface." Journal of Membrane Science, Vol. 325, Issue 1, 15 November 2008, pp. 277-283.  I have no idea what this really means, but it sure sounds convincing, doesn't it?

 

While, modernly, many full-size boat builders swear by penetrating epoxy (Smith and Co.'s "CPES," or "Clear Penetrating Epoxy Sealer") as a sealer on wood parts, and, indeed it is very useful stuff, laboratory testing demonstrates that epoxy is far more moisture permeable than shellac and shellac is way less expensive than epoxies.  This use is as a sealer and nothing more. The wood sealed with shellac is painted or varnished over after the shellac has dried. This application, as with penetrating epoxy, serves to prevent water from soaking into the wood if the surface coating's integrity is breached, typically when it cracks due to seam movement, and the wet wood beneath the finish coating then lifts and peels from the wood, a common problem with traditional varnishes.

 

The advantage of sealing wood in a ship model is that as ambient humidity fluctuates in the model's environment, the wooden parts expand and contract (i.e. "move") to varying degrees (depending upon species and other variables) in different directions (depending on grain orientation, primarily) and this movement, however slight and imperceptible, imposes stresses that can operate to essentially pull the model apart over time. Sealing with shellac won't prevent the phenomenon entirely. Moisture seeking equilibrium is a pretty powerful force of nature, but shellac will serve to slow down the process and protect the model from rapid and extreme environmental fluctuations in ambient humidity and that just makes them last longer before parts start getting loose and things start falling apart. 

 

I wish Ab Hoving, retired curator of the Amsterdam Rijksmuseum's ship models,  would show up and weigh in on this. I've reached the extreme limits of my knowledge on the subject at this point.  

 

[Bob Cleek]

5 hours ago, BobG said:

How do you prefer to knock down the sheen on the shellac when necessary? Do any of the shellac come in a matte finish to begin with?

No, shellac doesn't come in a "matte finish" as far as I know, although there's no reason one couldn't add a bit of rottenstone or pumice to it and make it so. I've heard that's done by some furniture finishers doing French polishing to make it fill grain better.

 

Generally, and we're talking furniture finishing here, the gloss of shellac is "adjusted" by hand-rubbing with pumice and rottenstone, which are very fine abrasive powders. It's a tiring process that takes a lot of "elbow grease," but it produces an amazing beautiful finish with an incredibly smooth, velvety "hand" (i.e. feeling to the touch.) I've done it on lathe-turned handles (where the spinning lathe does most of the work!) and on smaller pieces, such as a trophy I built once. It works with shellac, varnish, or oil-based paints.

 

Another way the gloss is "knocked down" on shellac and other finishes is by rubbing them with fine steel wool (or bronze wool in the marine environment.)  

 

For the modeling applications discussed here, the application of three pound (as bought in the can) or thinner (add your own alcohol to cut it) shellac will not leave any gloss at all. In order to be glossy, the shellac coating has to build up some thickness. A single coat or two's application of shellac that's the consistency of water soaks into the wood and does not have any gloss. The same is true if it's applied to rigging line. You have to build up multiple coats before you get anywhere near seeing any gloss from it. Orange shellac has some color to it, but "clear" or "white" shellac is virtually invisible on bare wood or rigging line until you start building up the coats and that's not anything you need to do unless you want to use the shellac to mimic varnished wood itself on the model.

[BobG]

56 minutes ago, Bob Cleek said:

"Bilayer membranes containing non-plasticized shellac exhibit low water vapor permeability (WVP), from 0.89 to 1.03 × 10⁻¹¹ g m⁻¹ s⁻¹ Pa⁻¹. A high value of contact angle (≈92°) and a low liquid water adsorption rate (26 × 10⁻³ μL s⁻¹) indicate that these barrier layers have a quite hydrophobic surface." Journal of Membrane Science, Vol. 325, Issue 1, 15 November 2008, pp. 277-283.

Holy moly! 😵

[Ab Hoving]

Just because you asked, Bob:

 

Shellac seems to be a product we forgot. That's a pity because it is a most versatile means of protection for many materials. I once read somewhere that the characteristic 'helmets' of the English Bobbies were made of velt soaked in shellac. Don't know if it is true. My experience with it as a varnish is that it works fantastically on wood. Many late 18th and 19th century models in my depot were done with it and only in cases the models were exposed to a lot of water, for instance as a result of a leaking roof, the material flaked and showed up white. Mostly because the wood underneath worked. It was also easy to replace. Alcohol removed the old remains almost immediately. Bringing on new layers was another story. All remnants had to be removed completely or they would show up very nastily after drying. That indicated that it was hardly possible to touch up an existing layer with some damage. If it had to be repaired, all had to come off. Bringing on the first layer was never a problem. But a second layer could end up in a disaster if the first one was too thick and a third layer almost always was a no go, unless you worked very quickly and never touched areas for a second time with your brush, otherwise you most probably ended up with a nasty slippery looking result. It could be sprayed though, but the result was (in case you did not have a spraying box with air suction) that in a matter of seconds you were standing in a thick fog of dried floating particles of shellac. For french polishing it was great too, though very time consuming.

I have used it occasionally for securing knots, but always from a container that was deliberately left open for a couple of days. The material became more condensed and spreading through the textile was limited much more than when using the freshly diluted stuff.

To be honest, I don't use it any more after I retired, although I do have a few bottles of it standing on the shelf and sometimes I look at them with a vague feeling of home-sickness. I use anything I can lay my hands on, even CA, to force my materials to behave the way I want them to and I don't care much about the longevity of my products. We are not here to stay forever and the same is true for my models. I'm only interested in their looks, not in their age :-).

Edited March 6, 2020 by Ab Hoving

[wefalck]

The discussion is veering off the original subject into the merit of shellac on wood ... Anyway, the question is what the merit would be of completely 'sealing' a wooden artefact against the atmosphere ? It cannot be achieved perfectly and was never attempted in history, if you look at antique pieces of furniture and models. It is well-known that shellac (french polished) surface are not resistant against water stains. The reason for french-polishing is probably purely aesthetic and not for 'protection'.

 

I learned about shellac probably in the late 1960s as a teenager, when my father treated the surface of a work-table with it, that still is around. It was my first choice, when I did my woodworking projects. As Ab noted, applying several layers of shellac with a brush is difficult too impossible. The solvent (alcohol) immediately begins to soften the already applied layer(s), resulting in a sort of leathery surface. Traditional 'french polish' is applied in a different way: first the wood is sanded or scraped smooth, then it is rubbed down with a pumice stone, but the dust is not removed. A rather dilute solution of shellac is then applied with a lint-free cotton 'pad'. I used for this an old, hundred times washed piece of cotton underwear, stuffed with cotton wool. The shellac is applied in the direction of the wood grain with fast strokes of the pad. If you are too slow, the pad will stick to the surface, if you are too fast not enough shellac is transferred. The pad also may not be too soaked, other wise you leave streakes. One has to learn the right parameters by experience - in the old days 'french polisher' was a trade of its own for a good reason. Once the layer is thoroughly dried, it is rubbed down again with a pumice stone and the whole procedure repeated until a flat, mirror-like surface is achieved. The subsequent strokes with the pad have to be very fast and light, so that the shellac dries almost immediately and the solvent does not have a chance to soften to previous layers. For this reason one also works with more concentrated solutions than at the beginning. The last, very very light application may still leave light streakes. These are remove with a very light pumice rubbing. The surface than is dry-polished to a gloss.

 

A modern, abreviated variant I am using is to apply nitrocellulose-based wood-filler over the sanded, wetted and sanded again surface. The filler is sanded down to the wood and another layer of filler applied. Depending on the wood grain, one may need to repeat this again. The last coat is not sanded, but rubbed down with steel-wool or scraped with a razor-blade. On this surface one or more coats of shellac is applied and rubbed down with steel wool after each application. If you are good, you may achieve the final glossy finish without dry polishing.

 

On models I more or less use the same procedure. Depending on the size and shape of the parts I use pumice powder, rather than steel wool to rub down the surface. The pumice can be rubbed on with a slightly wetted finger or a cotton stick. The pumice then is carefully brushed off. The last coat is rubbed down again with pumice, which leaves behind a more or less matt surface. You can create a nice satin sheen by polishing this surface with a felt-wheel in your hand-held drill. This polishing allows you to control the sheen from satin to gloss. Overall, this shellac treatment does not actually build up an appreciable thickness, but almost sits in the wood.

 

Here a model I build in the early 1980s:

 

[BobG]

10 hours ago, Ab Hoving said:

 

Shellac seems to be a product we forgot. That's a pity because it is a most versatile means of protection for many materials.

Thank you, Ab, for this very interesting information about using shellac. It's fascinating and enlightening.

 

10 hours ago, Ab Hoving said:

We are not here to stay forever and the same is true for my models. I'm only interested in their looks, not in their age :-).

This is so very true. Time seems to be defying the laws of physics as I get even older. A year seemed to last forever when I was young. Now, at age 73, time seems to have sped up and each new year seems to pass by in the blink of an eye. My son enjoys seeing the progress I make on my models and he appreciates the time and effort that goes into them. I hope he will treasure one of two of them when I'm gone. That gives me a deeper sense of value and gratification to my modeling hobby.

 

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by BobG

[BobG]

8 hours ago, wefalck said:

The discussion is veering off the original subject into the merit of shellac on wood ...

Yes, the discussion has drifted a bit but thanks to you and several other's who have contributed their knowledge, it has been very interesting and informative. Thanks so much.

 

 

[Bob Cleek]

Ab and wefalck's experiences with shellac mirror my own. While the thread may have drifted (though not intentionally been hijacked,  ) the relevance of shellac to the discussion of cyanoacrylate adhesive for use on rigging is that while CA is in some instances a preferable adhesive, shellac may be the better option for rigging applications for which some have been using CA. Ab said it best, "Shellac seems to be a product we forgot." 

 

And before this drifting thread's anchor sets, I'll mention that pumice and rottenstone, which wefalck and I mentioned in passing are also "seem to be products we forgot." 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Bob Cleek

[Bob Cleek]

10 hours ago, Ab Hoving said:

I use anything I can lay my hands on, even CA, to force my materials to behave the way I want them to and I don't care much about the longevity of my products. We are not here to stay forever and the same is true for my models. I'm only interested in their looks, not in their age :-).

Quite true! Good advice from a guy who spent a working lifetime making old models look good again!  We can do something about our models' looks, but we can't do anything about their age.

[BobG]

6 minutes ago, Bob Cleek said:

We can do something about our models' looks, but we can't do anything about their age.

Amen, Bob, and thanks for sharing your knowledge on this topic.

[Justin P.]

54 minutes ago, Bob Cleek said:

We can do something about our models' looks, but we can't do anything about their age.

...but we can do quite a lot about HOW they age.  

[Bob Cleek]

38 minutes ago, Justin P. said:

...but we can do quite a lot about HOW they age.  

Yep!

[dvm27]

I recently contacted Glen Grieco, professional ship model builder for Texas A&M University https://nautarch.tamu.edu/model/ regarding his choice of materials. If the splice or knot cannot be secured by the rope itself he uses shellac exclusively to adhere them. He also uses it to seal the hull before painting or a natural finish. He builds museum quality models for museums with specific criteria for materials so that's good enough for me!

[BobG]

Thanks for the link to the Texas A&M ship modeling, Greg. I took a look and there are some beautiful models there.

 

 

[dvm27]

2 hours ago, BobG said:

Thanks for the link to the Texas A&M ship modeling, Greg. I took a look and there are some beautiful models there.

 

 

Make sure to check out his Jefferson model under construction. It's perfection in building!

[BobG]

I got some clear shellac to try and a quart was the smallest size I could find locally. That should be more than enough for a lifetime of sealing knots. However, I see where lots of woodworkers say that shellac has a short shelf life. Some say the shelf life is as short as 6 months. Does anyone know if this is true from their experience?

[wefalck]

To my knowledge, shellac has unlimited shelf-life, it lasts forever. I remember finishing off on my projects a bottle my father had bought at least a decade earlier. The problem may be, however, that the solvent, alcohol, evaporates from not perfectly closing vessels, but this is easy to replenish.

[stm]

I understood the same thing about shellac, that it had an unlimited shelf life. Did have a small can of orange shellac that was decades old and used it for a small project with good results. Used it again a few years later to find that the can was no longer providing a proper seal. Poured the contains into a glass jar and used it five years later on and still worked fine. Unfortunately a few years again had passed and I tried to use it for one of my ships only to find that it refused to dry after several attempts and would remain tacky. May be not always an unlimited shelf life. 

Scott