I have intermittent problems with the tips I glue on coming loose and twisting. I feel like such an idiot because this task should be so easy.

I use a hot melt glue stick and order tips to fit the published tip size. On the tips I find loose I'll take and pull them off and it looks like there isn't much for glue on them. Probably not much advice possible to give here (other than basic common sense) but if anyone wants to chime in and help out a hobbiest I'd appreciate it.

Keith Fischer

Keith,

What it sounds like is that the air inside the tube of the tip-top is excaping while you're placing it on the rod, thus causing some of the hot-melt glue to travel out along with it. Try cutting some thin slivers of the glue stick...thin enough to place inside of the tip's tube. Then melt the glue slivers so that they fill the tube from the bottom up. Then just heat the tube and place in on the rod tip....the glue on the bottom of the tip's tube will push the air out in front of it.

Does any of that make sense?

Bret

Take a drill bit or maybe a pin, bend the tip of the pin just a little. Use these to clean and scratch the inside of the tube - well.
Then lightly sand the tip of the blank for grip.
Use 5 min epoxy

Drop in a couple of slivers of the hot glue. I understand that the maker is going to market the glue in thin rods, which should be even better.

best tip i've heard is put the glue stick in a gun. tip top glue sticks fit right in most small glue guns. take a small piece of finished wood, something that is a little slick to the touch and squirt the glue in lines on the wood. once the glue dries, scrape it off the wood and you'll have glue "rods" of sorts that will fit in tip tops. put glue in the tip top and break off glue above the rim of the tube. heat the tube to melt the glue down into the tip. Do this TWO times. when the tube is full on the second time, glue will bubble out of the top when it is filled up. scratch the tip of the blank with a razor, and apply a small amount of glue on the tip well using the heated end of a tip top glue stick. when ready to apply the tip top, heat the tip of the blank and the tip top, the tip top first, heat until you see the above mentioned bubbles, then the tip of the blank. push on the tip top, spin it and align with the spine of the rod. that's the way i do it, i learned it from flexcoat's method. works really well!

If the "hot melt glue stick" you refer to is the kind you can buy in a craft store, that is most likely the problem, it isn't very good stuff for something like glueing tip tops on. If it's either Flex Coat or Gudebrod tip top adhesive, then the problem is not having enough in the right place. Putting some inside the tube makes all the difference. I used 5 minute epoxy a couple of times and will never use it again. The tip top adhesive holds really well when done correctly and if it turns out to be out of alignment, it's very simple to correct.

Use 5 min epoxy.

Lou

Use 5 minute epoxy.

Putter
Williston, ND

Ya'll must get it right the first time! I am always switching around tip tops and could not manage without tip top adhesive.

Stay with this board Don and you too will get it right the first time

Use a single foot guide for a tip top.

If'n I doesn't have time to do it right da foist time, when will I? LOL!!

No, we all goof up once in a while. With the 5 minute, the trick is to notice the goof-up within 15 minutes to a half hour or so of gluing. Simple heating, just like with the hot melt butter, errr, glue, will allow you to correct the tip top's placement. No problems, just make sure within that early time frame that you've got it right where you want it or you'll maybe have to buy another tip top, although I can salvage them, too, if I choose to.

I can always remove a tip top that's been put on a rod with 5 minute adhesive without damaging the blank. It's more of a pain to do it with out damaging the tip top with the pliers. I should really buy another pair of pliers for the rod bench and leave all the tape on the jaws for this little job. But they usually need to be replaced when I remove them anyhow...

Putter
Williston, ND

Putter
There was a trick mensioned here about tying on I think it was a heafty rubber band to the top and when heating it, the pressure of the band pulls the top off.
I always use pliers with the tape on the jaws ??

Never enough time to do it right -- Always enough time to do it over ???

Between the rods I build and the ones that come in for a tip change, I am installing well over a thousand tips in a years time. I use the big 10" Flexcoat glue sticks, the craft glue is not strong enough. On the rods I build I have started running the finish up on the tip barrel for extra strength. That was a tip I got off this site a couple of years ago. Jesse

Thanks everyone for the advice. I'll adapt and do better.

The type of hot melt glue I 've been using is FerroLite, which I used for years to glue inserts into aluminum arrows. It has plenty of strength for that use so I assumed that it would not be a problem in tip application.

Thanks again.

5 min epoxy

heat the end of the tip glue stick and pinch off a small piece of glue, and while it is still hot roll it into a cigar shape. Then drop the piece into the tube of the tip top, heat the tube and put it on the rod