I would like to start a discussion on the use of CA and similar products as a crack sealer and wood stabilizer for fore-end and stock wood, especially in the stock head and inletting. I have read many different opinions on this forum and others. Are these merely opinions or is there some factual information to be had on this topic?

LetFly?

What do you consider factual information? I have used it a lot on both gunstocks and woodworking projects of many types. It is widely used but woodsmiths all over the world.

BrentD, not sure. Some recommend using it liberally to coat the inside wood as well as glueing up splits and cracks, others do care for this use. I have used it on really tight cracks where opening the crack to get a deeper glue (Titebond) would only make the separation worse. I guess I am mostly interested in this idea of using it as a coating on all of the inlet surfaces.

Letfly, I have used it in that capacity. It will definitely seal the wood very well. No question about that. It does harden the wood somewhat. Make up a few test blocks from scrap wood and hammer on them or test them yourself. It doesn't do much of anything really for bedding purposes. If you want to help the wood absorb recoil, for instance, then epoxy used as bedding spreads the force of impact out much more evenly and that doesn't make the wood so much stronger as it does just makes all of the wood share the load vs, having just the minute high spots carry the load. If your inletting is perfect, then the gain from epoxy bedding would be minimal and related mostly to preventing oil/moisture accumulation. But no inletting is truly that perfect or likely to stay perfect.

I like CA much better than an oil based wood finish for sealing the interior. I don't do it all the time, but I have used it for that purpose and it has done the job admirably and continues to do so.

BTW, there are other products to consider. One is MinWax's Wood Hardener. It uses a VERY nasty solvent so use in a ventilated location. It will dissolve things like foam brushes pretty well too. This is great for coating the insides and it penetrates like CA. Again, no bedding advantage,. but for a gun that will see wet and ugly, it will do a great job.

Your best bet is to try some of these on scraps of wood with inlets in them so you can get used to handling the materials and avoid issues like puddling or whatever. Then soak them with oils, water, try crushing a few, and cut them apart to see how the material has performed at the various tasks you want it to do.

Last of all, and I do not do this, but it works well, is heated epoxy sealing. That can soak into the wood very well. Some West Coast/rainforest big game hunters use this for an entire gun finish - not my cuppa, but done right, it will make your gun more impervious to the elements than anything - but it's not quite your standard English, hand rubbed finish either.

The late gunmaker Paul Dressel used CA for the inside as well as outside finish on all his stocks.

Many years ago when I was shooting a lot and hanging out with the Camp Perry crowd, One of the tricks was to thin glass bedding compound or marine grade resin with acetone; this allowed it to penetrate the wood, providing a very good moisture barrier and greatly help stabilize the wood.

I think it’s used pretty regularly for spot stabilizing, primarily to minimize drying checks from forming. Quality light viscosity CA might be used generally over an area, but you may notice it wick more effectively into end grain.

For that and smaller bark inclusions and cracks it is great. It comes in different viscosities. For situations where their is some filling required, the thin first to get way down in there and seal the crack and then the thick stuff to fill. Filling may require several applications, but that sort of work is pretty darn rare in gunstocks. Not so uncommon in other woodworking projects where crack, splalting, knots and inclusions can be features.

I have used CA to treat semi-tight knots and found that it will penetrate the full width of a blank even when the knot didn't seem to have a gap on the tight side. I've never had an application fail. For bigger uses, like forearm tips, I prefer Gorilla Glue or epoxy.

Using CA as a crack filler or wood stabilizer is a lot like using Boiled Linseed Oil as a stock finish. It will help somewhat, but there are better products such as thinned epoxy or the Minwax wood hardener.

I was surprised to see the cheapskate BrentD mention the Minwax product, because the last time we had this same discussion, I brought it up as a better alternative to CA. I'm also surprised that BrentD spends so much time here since he hates this forum and encourages people to support his crybaby financial boycott of support for this site. He claims that it is so much better on Upland Journal forum.... yet he can't stay away from this Doublegunshop forum which he despises. Weird.

What is CA?
Pete

CA is Cyanoacrylate glue. This is what Krazy glue or Super glue is. The bond strength is quite high in tension, but not very strong in shear. A lot of people think it is good as a way to stabilize porous or punky wood. But there are better products. It doesn't really penetrate very deep even with the very thinned versions. If rocky mtn bill had it go all the way through a blank, there was a crack that it flowed through. And once it sets up (pretty quickly) it acts as an effective sealer preventing any further penetration from successive applications.

The Minwax wood hardener is a better product for the purpose of strengthening wood which may have damage from oiling, or even damage from agressive use of harsh solvents used to remove oil. Some woodworkers use it in vacuum chambers to get it to penetrate deep into punky or spalted wood. Any CA, wood hardener, or epoxy that is applied to exposed surfaces of a stock is going to act as a sealer that will affect the appearance of staining or final finish.