Applying a CA Finish (Pen Turning How-to)

We'll show you how to apply a CA finish to a pen!

Applying a CA glue finish is a lot easier than it looks and it creates a durable, high-gloss finish that looks amazing on all types of material. We'll show you the best step-by-step process for applying a ca pen finish, so you can achieve the same results on your next woodturning project. Enjoy the video and please share :)

- CORRECTION -
At the 6:41 mark we mistakenly switched the buffing wheels. The beige is the cotton wheel and takes the compound, the white wheel is the flannel wheel and is used for final polishing.

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[CraftSuppliesUSA]

Enjoy the video and please share if you enjoyed it :)

[bobsford]

Add me to the folks that you really helped out. I'd been finishing pens and handles for awhile, with CA glue with good results and then one day I just started having trouble out of no where and gave up for awhile. I came back to it for this holiday season and the first handle I finished looked great until the next day when I came back to the lathe and it had completely cracked. That's when I turned to youtube. The big things I took from your video and others I watched (yours was the most helpful, though) were ditching the white household paper towels for the blue shop towels, using fresh CA glue and just using a fine mist of accelerant from further away. Probably the biggest issue I had was using old CA glue, which probably started to expire back when I first had troubles that caused me to give up and from what I've seen definitely caused the cracking. The next biggest thing were that the blue paper towels work so much better; I always noticed that the glue always began hardening as I was applying it with the white towels, which didn't give me a lot of time for smoothing, the blue towels have given me much more time for smoothing out the finish and has really reduced the finishing time. Looking at a few comments here about the hard, rough and blistered surface is exactly what I was getting with accelerant by over spraying too close to the work piece. Although; I find myself not using the accelerant that often still and just let it dry naturally. It usually doesn't take long anyways and I just do something else for a few minutes. With these changes, for me personally, I've been going straight from the last coat drying to just a couple minutes on the slow speed buffer with the white clay, with no sanding and have been very happy with the results and so have my customers.

[thomasharder]

Oh my God was I happy to see you in this search on applying CA Glue Finishes Mike. So many amateurs, it's hard to work through all of their talking. It's a pleasure to watch a professional who knows how to use all the tools. Plus you cover all the bases like the type of paper towel to use!

[LearningTradeSecrets]

I have struggled with a CA finish and it was great to see this video. Professionals always make things look so easy. You didn't mention using any kind of respirator. The CA burns my sinuses and it takes about 3 days to get back to normal. Please beware of inhaling such chemicals.

[aprildegele]

CA finish is for me! I love it, especially for acrylic blanks. Don't discard the shop paper towel after each pass! Just turn it/refold it. You should have 4 usable sides to one cut of towel. And if you pay attention to the folding of the towel, you can get many more applications.

[clintnaftzger]

I liked your video, so I watched it a second time and wrote down step by step and then went to shop and recreated it and my pen turned out beautiful. Thanks for the video.

[silencedogood]

This video took me from taking a week to CA polish with little to no success to polishing a piece in a matter of an hour or a little more and even that might be a long time after watching this video. Many thanks, you just changed my business!!!

[chrislunsford]

I just wanted to thank you, I had issues with a CA finish until I found this video. It’s my go to when applying a CA finish now! Great results every time!

[Jaykav]

tired this for the first time with this video playing next to me...i was wondering if a resin blank would even need this treatment...glad i did the surface texture feels like perfect glass. thanks for the vid.

[todds]

Great We have a lot of customers at Woodcraft in Loveland who are new at turning pens, and they often ask about best practices for finishing a pen. This will be a great resource to point them towards for sure. Keep up the great work as always.

[inspectr]

Nice refresher Mike, got away from pen turning some time ago as I found that I just couldn't sell them for the time, material and tools needed to make them but now that I'm old and in failing health decided to use up my inventory and must admit done right they are very self gratifying to leave behind. Miss the Craft Supplies USA symposiums in Provo and your Dad.

[davejohnson]

Thanks for the tutorial. Finally, after following your step by step instructions, I have a pen I am happy with.

[bwrightaway]

Thanks for the video. I have failed many times trying to do a CA finish. Hopefully these tips help out.

[KOTEC]

best video on this process I've seen! Even easy enough for me to follow! thank you!

[TheTranq]

Successfully turned my first pen tonight! Not perfect but excited to keep working on it. It's a good introductory project to the lathe

[MrClarkio]

Excellent video. Thank you for sharing your knowledge and know how.

[heinrich-peterhimmelbauer]

Great Video, came in time, but no description below, only shop-link. Not, what I expected. Nontheless I ordered most of the parts. Looking forward to that sort of finishing.

[drummerman]

Love this video. Thank you so much. The pen looked amazing.

[knothead]

Why add CA to a synthetic blank material? Here goes: I used the Micro Mesh pads but had CA build up on the pad. How do you clean residue from the MM pad? Also, I built custom fishing rods and used lint-less coffee filters. Much cheaper than the blue towels. I like how you dripped the CA onto the blank instead of applying to the towel. Thanks.

[josephalbert]

Like the video. But when I sprayed the finish with the accelerant, it "blistered".that is it sort of "bubbled". Why? What would I do to stop this.? Joseph Albert