Posted by Catharine C. Kennedy on February 17, 2004
Danny BaronianRather than trying to use the dissicent beads for drying the glue-chipped panels, I'd like to build a drying box such as has been mentioned occaisionally here. For a 2' square box: how many light bulbs? What size vent holes? Should the top (lid) be glass or plexy or masonite? Should the glass be on dowel "racks" for air circulation?
Thanks!
Mike Jackson - My drafting table and a kitchen light (with photo)Catharine,
Sitting in the dentist chair I was thinking of your question, and a way you could make a set up easily, quickly and cheaply. On the ceiling was a fluorescent light fixture 2' x 4'.
That's was the answer. Go Home Depot, Lowe's or whatever you have back there and buy a 2'x2' fluorescent fixture, the more tubes the better, but I imagine they'll have either two or four, and should be fairly inexpensive. The units come with a light weight difussion piece over the front which could later be replaced, or you could place a piece of 1/4" plate glass over that.
After Dave Smith commented on how he's chipping , he's using converted light fixtures. I've been doing some small pieces just to see how it chips with a single tube fixture 18" long that I had in the shop. The temperature in my shop was 50 deg, yet the glass, placed directly over the single fluorescent tube brought the surface temperature up to 75 degrees, and the humidity from 65% to 30. The glass chipped overnight. Mike's suggest this before, but after the glass has been on the light for several hours, either stick it in the refrigerator, or outside for 5-10 minutes to shock the glue. Mike has an outdoor refrigerator. It was -17 outside last week in Wyoming.
If you decide down the road you need something bigger then build it, but for your immediate needs this should do nicely.
In the photo you can see the temperature is 70, humidity at 59%. The glass had been pulled out of the freeze 45 minutes before the photo.
Danny
The top photo shows a piece that is chipping right now. There is an area about 1/4" diameter that is still needing to chip. I'm just giving it time and warmth using the light table and a regular 60 watt light bulb.
Danny mentioned commercially made lights. The bottom photo shows a light we bought at Home Depot for our kitchen. The make quite a few that are designed to hold four 4' flourescent bulbs. This one has an oak frame, but the metal ones are cheaper. That is all the heat you will probably need to get a reasonable chip.
I don't chip enough panels to dedicate a wall of my shop to a chipping box, so I like to use devices I can take apart and store. Better yet, it is nice if the parts of the devices can serve multiple purposes. For example, the plastic container I use to chip in, migh also be used to fill a bit with thinner and clean asphaltum.
Food for thought!
Mike
Larry White - David Smiths New Method
Mike JacksonThe latest interesting information came out of David Smith in England where he basically built a steep angled light box (flourescents) with plexi-glass over the front, in which he leans the dried panels against. He says the glue chips off quite evenly and rapidly, even when it's raining. He likes it so much, he dismantled his "chipping box". I've asked him for a picture of it, I'll hit him up again. -LW
Hi Larry,
I had heard about Dave's box, too. Sounds similar to my lighted drafting table!
People might be able to just buy an old electric sign can and replace the vacuum formed face with a flat piece of plex. You can also buy sign can "kits" from most sign suppliers.
The down side of Dave's unit is it lets the glue chips fly off the glass onto the floor. That might be a problem with dogs or kids in the shop.
Mike Jackson
Larry White
I suppose you could rig some sort of curtian to shield from flying chips, and catch them too.
One down side is that each piece needs to fully rest against the box. This would be fine for short run stuff, but if you're doing production, chipping a lot of panels at once, a booth or box might be better.
Pat Mackel set up a garden shed inside his garage to chip his production runs in. -LW
Mike Jackson
For a low budget, low volume, small piece set up, I think I would go to KMart and buy a large "sweater" storage plastic container about 6" tall, 34" long and 22-24" wide. I'd order a piece of 1/4" clear plex to replace the opaque plastic lid and put a few foam pads in the bottom of the container to protect the glass. Then, I'd buy or find a series of three or four "under the counter" style flourescent lights to put under the box to generate the low intensity heat source. The top edge of the plastic container might need a strip of weather stripping along the top and you might need to add some weight (a book or two) to the top of the plex. You could easily see the progress and not worry about chips flying around.
I haven't made one personally, but I had been thinking about it to put above my drafting table to keep the small chips from flying around my office. They make all sized of clear plastic containers. Around Christmas, you see a lot of them for storing Christmas wrapping paper. You'd just need to find one large enough to hold the pieces of glass you expect to use.
Mike Jackson
Mike Jackson
Catharine,
If you go to the "one Page Version" of this board, you can search for "Chip". It will march you through 34 pages of posts and you will find a LOT of information about Glue-Chipping in general and numerous threads on making a drying and chipping box.
There was one in April of 2003 which had a lot of information about booths, including one I posted showing a drawing of Rick Glawson's booth, shown again above. If you read all the posts about glue-chipping that are already on this forum, you will have a really solid background on doing it. From there you just have to make some pieces, which it sounds like you are already doing.
There are a few of us who live in the Rocky Mountains where the relative humidity is low almost all year. We get pretty good chips without a special box. Right now, I just put the glass over my light table and bring the lamp down to keep the air above the table warm, too. It really doesn't take much heat to warm the air in a small area, so you have to balance the amount of lights and heat to suit your area.
Good luck,
Mike Jackson
John Grenier
Find this past post.
Posted by Mike Jackson on April 14, 19103 at 20:56:59:
In Reply to: glue chip work area posted by John Grenier on April 14, 19103 at 16:03:21:
I built it like the drawing and it works great. I did add a small light bulb that is always on. Because you just have to look. And a change I will be making is the door. It should open like a refridgerator and about 2/3 of the front surface. I cut lluan for the shelving various sizes that can be used as needed. Sort of an unexpected, though obvious, is its use as a dryer for just about everthing that will fit in it. The lamps can be a little hot so the lluan sheve pces can also shield the painted stuff. In fact doors for our kitchen cupboards are drying right now.
Good luck
John
Denver Chapter of the Letterheads