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Let's say I have a lot of time to build my plane. There is no rush at all, just a focus on building it with as much precision as possible. Is there any pros or cons from using accelerator? Obviously accelerator speeds up the drying process but won't it technically be extra weight or like another layer of glue/liquid?

wrightstuffmhs wrote:Let's say I have a lot of time to build my plane. There is no rush at all, just a focus on building it with as much precision as possible. Is there any pros or cons from using accelerator? Obviously accelerator speeds up the drying process but won't it technically be extra weight or like another layer of glue/liquid?

My guess is any weight from accelerator is negligible. It seems volatile and only a tiny drop is needed to set glue.

Quite frankly, accelerator is helpful when you have a bad joint to begin with. It helps the glue cure in the gap and "bridge" the gap. However, such "kicked" CA is more brittle.

You will ALWAYS be better off to make a good joint to begin with. Intimate mechanical contact of the joined surfaces, with a capillary dispenser, will take the smallest amount of thin CA, and will self-kick rather quickly, giving a solid joint. We had no thick glue on our plane (sometimes called "gap filling"). The thin glue, when starting with a good joint, never needed kicker. On some key joints we also wrapped with thread (standard sewing thread) and an extra drop of thin CA. this was more on heli than on WS. Even the posts to LE and TE joint did not need kicker or thread. When we had carbon-carbon joints (our tip plate outline was carbon, as well as LE and TE), the thread wrap was used.

Chuck