Gluing advice, and new developments (or the other way around???)

Last Saturday (Oct. 4, 08) was an exciting day. Michael King, a very well known and respected home talk show host, invited me to participate in his show, Home Talk USA (http://www.hometalkusa.com/). We spent some time discussing different aspects of StaticOff, who is it good for, and the technology behind it. Michael is a great guy and I really enjoyed participating in the show. Besides, this is the first time that StaticOff has gotten national media attention. By the level of interest, I hope it will get far more in the near future.

As I said, Michael is a great guy and I wanted to repay him for having me on the show by giving him a useful tip which he could have shared with his listeners and added to his useful tips section on his web site, but due to shortness of time, I did not get a chance to do this. Therefore, I will share it with you here:
Oftentimes we need to glue stuff, and often clamps are very inconvenient – the shapes don’t always allow for easy clamping – placing edging on a concave tabletop, placing straight trim on a crooked wall... For example, if you ever tried to glue a piece of trim to a bathtub, you know what I mean. You can’t use nails, and you need to fashion clamping devices from pieces of wood, weights, or whatever your imagination can come up with. Similarly, placing an edge trim on a complex shape is very hard – there simply is no good way to place the clamps.

So, what is the solution?
Well, as we all know, Superglue is not a good construction glue. It is too stiff and as the building or the parts we glue ‘work’, the Superglue bond will break. On the other hand, we need to clamp the pieces glued by appropriate glues because those glues take so much longer to dry. So the idea is to combine the use of both glues.

You use whichever glue you think will best fit the job: regular carpenter glue, polystyrene glue, ‘nails’ style adhesive, or whatever. Before you spread the glue, dry fit the parts, and note where there is stress – locate the places where the objects try to “get away” from each other. Pencil-mark those spots. When you spread the glue, leave a small area – just a half of a square inch is often enough – without glue. Now, place some super glue on those clean areas, and place the parts together. Hold it for about 60 seconds and let go. You are using the fast gluing action to provide the required temporary holding to let the common glue cure. You can say that you just made a custom clamp, especially for your specific situation. It is simple and easy, and it works. I have stuff in my house that I used this method on since 1993 and they are still right where I put them.