Handy Hobby Tip: The Secret to Glue-free Hands…

…is to not use your hands.

Of course you have to use your hands when crafting. So, take the advice of one of my favorite YouTube crafters, the Crafsman, and “wear you some gloves”. We’ll come back to this.

Great glue!  But not on my hands

I bought 16 oz of Starbond Heavy Thin CA Glue‡ back in November. It’s great stuff but quite runny (by design). The glue arrived in a large shipping bottle, accompanied by four 2 oz refillable applicator bottles and a pack of micro-tip applicator attachments. I quickly found that bottle-to-bottle glue transfers and poorly seated applicator tips meant a crunked-up, gooey bottle. 

So, the post title may be click-baity, but I mean it when I say don’t use your hands when using super glue. More accurately, make a DIY, disposable glue brush.

Take a piece of thin steel wire and pinch it into a tight loop maybe 20mm long. Insert the wire into an Exacto-knife handle and form the “bristles” by wrapping the loop with masking tape. The masking tape extends about double the length of the wire, with its tip shaped by a couple of snips from some scissors. 

DIY Glue Brush

Once I’m ready to start bonding stuff with CA glue, I’ll put a couple of drops on a piece of non-porous scrap and then dab it with my DIY glue brush. The flexible masking tape tip makes it easy to apply tiny amounts of CA glue just where I want it, without the frustration of gluing pieces of the build to my fingers. I’ll make two or three of these masking tape brushes at the same time, and when the tip of one gets gunked up with glue, I’ll swap it for a new one. By the time I’m on the last brush tip, the CA glue on the first one is cured, and I’ll snip off the fouled area and be back to a fresh, if slightly shorter, glue brush.

Using this little glue brush I’m able to keep 90% of the super glue off my fingers. Repositioning a freshly glued piece, or handling a leaky glue bottle means I’m still going to get sticky fingers though, so it’s back to the gloves discussion, nitrile gloves specifically.

Pasta Bot says "half gloves still count."

I’m probably not alone in feeling that I lose some dexterity when wearing even thin nitrile gloves. My technique to preserving some dexterity is to leave a couple of fingers ungloved, preferably a non-dominant finger I don’t use reflexively, like the pinky or ring-finger. I find I don’t need to cut up my nitrile gloves to customize them; the poor quality control in their manufacture means that a glove is almost guaranteed to tear on the first doffing. Instead of tossing a torn glove, I’ll salvage the finger tips and reuse them repeatedly.

‡I don't get any kickbacks from Starbond, I just want to give praise where its deserved.  Great glue.

Handy Hobby Tip: Silicone Muffin Cups

I’m no expert crafter but I’ve been messing about with various media for the better part of two decades now. A series of short posts I have planned will share some of the handy tips and tricks, “hacks” as the kids say, I’ve discovered over this time.

I haven’t scrubbed YouTube or the entire blogosphere, so it’s likely others have previously come up with similar techniques and tools. Still, I find that even obviously useful items like binder clips become even more essential in the workshop when used in some non-obvious way. I hope that maybe these posts will make someone’s crafting experience just a little more efficient, a little less frustrating, or maybe just more fun.

OK, on to the first tip: keep a number of silicone muffin baking cups around your hobby space.

I saved four or five of these little individual silicone muffin cups that my wife added to the charity shop donation pile. Both crafters and bakers know that almost nothing sticks to silicone, but I’ve found craft-specific silicone mixing cups a bit pricey. Silicone baking cups seem cheap and plentiful however, at least in my experience. I think we paid maybe $5 US (in 2015...) for a pack of 16.

Use one of these cups to mix your acrylic paint; when you’re done with your brushwork, turn the cup inside out to pop the dried paint right into the garbage. Do the same trick when mixing up putties, waxes, or resins.

Glues like PVA also come off the muffin cups with no effort, once cured.  Super glue supposedly comes off silicone easily, according to various references, but my silicone/CA glue experience is mixed. I recently spilled a few drops of CA glue in a silicone cup and then tried to remove them once cured. One blob of cured CA glue popped right off, but the other blob refused to let go, tearing away a small chunk of the cup when I pulled. So, with CA glue, who knows? I recommend against using a cup like this with super glue, or at least using a barrier like aluminum foil. 

The malleability of these cups make them great for controlled pouring of liquids or powders, like the baking soda shown here.

Finally, after an easy clean-up the cups nest together for compact storage.