I just rescaled this kitchen knife and as the first one I have done there is a lot that is wrong with it but I wanted to post the way I finished it as it should work great for a lot of small GF projects.
I stumbled across this on the interwebs and mostly pen turners use it but it works great for any small smooth project.
Just sand smooth, apply a light coat of BLO (boiled linseed oil), then put a small amount of thin CA (super glue) on a shop towel and rub it in briskly. Don’t stop moving or you can end up gluing the towel to your part.
The BLO acts as an accelerant for the CA and everything is dry almost instantly. No hours between coats. Apply two or three coats and then polish.
I’m one of those that use CA finish on my pens and it does work great once you get the hang of applying it. I use an accelerator spray after applying rather than linseed oil before the CA. Nice job!
I’ve seen just the CA and accelerator as well and experimented with it on a scrap. I guess it depends on the wood as for this maple the CA BLO combo works great.
Just a safety note: linseed oil left on a towel or rag can sometimes rapidly oxidize and start a fire. Please store it away from your home or dispose of quickly. This is especially true of fresh oil.
Question for the hivemind: Is using CA on leather exothermic?
@volivaa’s safety note reminded me of something from when I was a teenager (long, long ago in a galaxy far away) — I used CrazyGlue (CA) to repair a leather belt, and remember that the join grew uncomfortably hot when I held it together with my fingers. Haven’t though of this in decades, but now I’m curious as to appropriate adhesives for leather.
And be careful disposing the rag. We had some contractors almost burn our new house down by letting a soaked rag laying around. It luckily only burned some scrap wood. If it ended a few inches closer to the rough framed wall, it would have come out worse.
When joining two SOFT pieces of leather or belt type leather, you must make sure that the surfaces you’re going to join are un-treated and rough, then a THIN layer of rubber or contact cement on both surfaces and let dry til still wet but not quite pull clean from your finger tacky…THIS is the trick.
