Tinting CA Glue

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It's more successful using tinted epoxy.

I have never tinted CA, but some say they have--may get someone to give you their insight. I get instant stone.
 
are you fixing a crack in wood or a plastic? Although I have never tried it on a Resin or acrylic blank, on wood I simply fill the crack with sawdust and shavings from the wood and then put a drop of thin ca on it. I do this till I build it up above the surface then turn or sand back down. It's hard to tell where the crack was when I do this.

If it is a patterned acrylic the same process might work using dust or shavings from the acrylic, but not sure if it would work on a solid color acrylic.

Just my 2 cents worth.
 
I'm filling in cracks in stabilized driftwood, most cracks are dark brown to black. Filling with the sawdust generated will not match up. I like the epoxy idea. I'll try that next. Thanks for the input.
 
Another successful technique I learned here (IAP) is to use coffee, ground very fine and drip on thin CA--that will fill nicely, if you want a dark brown fill.

And the bonus: SMELLS great until you add the CA!!!
 
Coffee grounds work well. If you use coffee it seems to work best if you use used grounds, that way a lot of the oils are gone. There's a lot of things you can use to fill. I've used sawdust, brass key shavings, embossing powder etc. With the sawdust I save some of different sawdusts so I can match color if I want to.
On smaller projects I use ca and larger things like bowls you can use epoxy.
 
You might also try mixing a wee bit of Blendal powder into the CA. In a previous life as a furniture repair guy, I grew to love this stuff.
You can get it from various online sources. Don't try to buy direct from Mohawk unless you want 2 lbs of each color!
 
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Wow! I'm on to something here!

I wish I would have known about this when I was repairing furniture. I could have used it many times and made more money. Oh well.

Out of curiosity, I went out to the shop tonight and gave a little Blendal love to some gel CA. I mixed a little bit of metallic gold pigment into a blob of gel. I was expecting it to resist wetting out, but it accepted the pigment and mixed right up. I put some dabs here and there and shot it with accelerator, and it did just what it is supposed to. Now I have metallic gold spots on my bench dogs.

I noticed that the blob left on the precision paper plate mixing surface started to thicken after a couple of minutes, probably because of the nucleating effect of the pigment particles, so there is a short pot life. Maybe 4 or 5 minutes.

With the wide variety of colors available, including the primaries and black and white, this will be a nice way to add accents, color rings, hide blemishes, or even fill in engraved words or names.

Tomorrow I think I'll make a test plaque of different colors and post photos. I have about 10 - 12 colors, and I can mix some as well.

One tip- if you want to hide a repair, use at least two or more colors, including the lightest, or background color, and a darker color or two to match the rest of the area. I would mix the colors separately and then put them in the repair, only slightly mixing them. A solid color repair stands out like a sore thumb, but a swirly, mottled one will disappear. (Takes practice!)

If you can't get a nice matching repair, don't even try. Go for a contrasting color and call it a feature!:wink:

Myron
 
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