Breaking a CA glued Join.

by John

I have been adding strips of brass square section wire (1mm x 1mm) to the stern and quarter galleries. But when I added the second bottom curved strip it just looked wrong. Trouble was that I had used CA glue to attach it to to the stern counter piece and I definitely did NOT want to risk destroying all of that finicky work by removing one piece..

The 2 curved brass strips across the stern counter just looked wrong. I was not bothered by the white smear of CA glue because I knew that a touchup with German Grey paint would make it disappear. But the strips should have been parallel, and looked parallel.

Both strips are a bit off, but worse is the fact that they both converge toward the port end. What to do?? The top strip sits in an angle in the woodwork. The bottom strip sits on a flattish curved surface.

After mulling about the issue for the best part of a day I decided to remove the bottom strip, revise the gentle curve, and reglue it in a slightly altered place, determined by measuring the separation from the top strip. If necessary I would do the same for the top strip. What I did NOT want to do was to detroy the underlying woodwork.

So, with a very fine paint brush I applied a thin application of acetone to the top edge of the bottom strip and about 20 seconds later wobbled the top strip free with a pair of parallel jawed pliers.

To my relief, the brass strip broke free, removing a bit of paint but no wood.

Then I made a series of marks from the top strip, 14mm away.

Did some fine blacksmithing on the removed bottom strip to change the curve, cut it about 0.5mm shorter, cleaned up the face with the detached paint, and reglued it again using CA glue.

I am the first to admit that it still is not perfect. But it is a lot better. Do I try the same method on the top strip too?

Nup!

It is good enough.

Sometimes I am guilty of continuing to improve something until I totally wreck it. Not in this case. But I was a bit aggressive with my position marks. A bit of fill and repaint will be required to hide those.

And when the large B-E-L-L-E-R-O-P-H-O-N name is glued between the 2 strips I doubt that anyone will notice.

Oh, and I have started to fill the gaps in the carved transom pieces. A bit more work required there.