GLUE - The Secret Life of Components - a series of guides for makers and designers - Episode 7 

Rather than a "presenter" giving us the knowledge, we have you. A man with cut fingers, dirty fingernails and scars. A person who knows more than most in practical terms. Absolutely brilliant. I guess there's thousands who would love to meet you and your incredible machines, put me on the list,

I'm glued to this video. Let's all stick with him.

I am from Norway, and have never heard of Hunkin until "The secret life of..." showed up in my suggestions. I am amazed that I have just watched him talk about glue for almost an hour!

I know 20 year olds that can't hold their body weight up with their fingers like that, amazing! This man and his workshop should be a British National treasure!

You're a living legend, Tim. We've grown old together. Thank you.

Watching Tim casually decapitate the chiropodist to reveal a large metal hook gave me a good chuckle, I love these new episodes

I can’t believe how strong he is. Never underestimate an an dude in a boiler suit

I don't know how you manage to be so educational and calm while not being boring, but thank you, sir.

extra points for using the phrase "jaunty angle" haha

The section about hot glue loosing it's strength when it gets hot reminded me of an incident at a furniture store. In the late 70's, a few of us were making furniture in a friend's garage. We were experimenting with an industrial hot glue gun, using the glue to hold some pieces of wood on our furniture. We didn't want to drill and plug some exposed joints, so hot melt seemed the perfect solution. We tested the joints, banging them with a hammer, and they held up well. We put one of our pieces, a chair, in the street facing window of a friend's furniture store. The Summer sun beat down on the chair daily, and in 2 days, the chair started to disintegrate. Pieces were falling off by themselves, or when touched. Back to using screws and plugs. One thing about an industrial glue gun. It uses compressed air to push the glue out. This saves squeezing a handle all day, plus the glue gets REALLY hot. We didn't have a water trap on the intake for the industrial air compressor. Water, in the air line, and high heat, turns into STEAM. Then the steam, inside the gun nozzle, mixed with the super-heated glue, blew the scalding glue out of the nozzle like a shot gun. Onto our exposed flesh. Sticking to, and burning, the backs' of our hands. Many band-aids later, we concluded that we needed a water trap. Also, pulling hot melted glue off your hands is really painful.

33:21 - to recover the spiral tube waste when using specialist and very pricey resins (marine/subsea applications), we lay it lengthwise in a groove cut in a block of scrap wood (routed out with a round bit for production use) and slit it lengthwise, twice, with a Stanley knife ( which of course gets kacked up badly ) Remove the spiral and scoop out the remnants of the glue from the halved tube, giving it an extra mix with a lolipop stick before application because remember that mixing is minimal-to-none further up the tube. It's messy, tedious and frustrating - as well as a frantic race against time - but it saves a fair bit as the volume in the tube is a very significant proportion of the syringes. Good task for an apprentice. who needs to be well briefed and ready for it with everything to hand :) I first saw this done by a builder who was installing resin anchors and had lost one of his cartridges - he literally swore every 2 seconds all the while he was scooping resin out until he was finished.

Visiting the arcade was one of the highlights of my trip to London, I hope to make it to the pier this fall.

Tim your an absolute legend! Loved your TV series as a teen.....love them and your RU-vids more now I'm 46!! Thank you 😊

Being a all round DIYer now 82 I could watch these videos for hours and learn a lot, thank you.

Mr. Hunkin, thank you for your generosity in sharing what is apparently decades of knowledge, experience, and tradecraft. As someone who is a bit of a "jack-of-all-trades" myself, I find your videos to be well-conceived, easily understood, full of valuable insight, and entertaining! My deep appreciation to you!

Protip regarding hot glue: to peel it off easily you can use isopropyl alcohol, it makes unsticking/undoing things very very easy and doesn't leave residue

Hey Tim, I'm sure you get this a lot, but show really had a great impact on me when I was a kid, I would watch and rewatch every episode every freaking day. I grow up in 3rd world country and to this day it's a shithole, I don't even think they had licence for all episodes on TV back then, but I loved every single one and decided that that his is path that I want to pursue. Today I'm only able to have normal life and support my family because engineering is the only thing that still pays well here. Thanks for showing me the way and giving us awesome childhood!

Donated, go spend the tenner on something frivolous like the gas bill Tim :) Your work inspires youngsters not just us oldies. There isn't a day go by when some aspect of what you do doesn't get applied at Ralph's House.

The three men that have had a significant impact on my hobbies and interests would be my father, you, and James Burke I still search out episodes of The Secret Life of Machines. Very happy I found your channel! 👍

I knew the phrase “Stuck on you” would be found. I have a tip you may find useful: The demonstration of PVA & other simple wood glues, you found they slide when clamping. We saw that! While watching a TV show, an older woodworker took a pinch of salt and sprinkled a small amount on the wood glue, then clamped together with no slipping. The salt crystals in salt have spark edges a stop the sliding. The salt did not effect the adhesive and dissolved into the liquid! Brilliant I thought, this guy was building wooden planes by glueing sides to a cut block for the iron & mouth to create a plane as done for centuries except the old one were on piece blocks. A tiny pinch of salt goes along way! Cheers, I enjoy the info. Interesting plastics are marked with symbols for recycling. Car parts from radiator end tanks, oil pans, intakes have to resist oil, fuel/petrol and extremes in temperatures while retaining their shape. One in particular, marked PA66 GF33 is a nylon polyamide with 33% fiberglass filler to add strength. It is difficult to glue, but a few companies make it. The problem I found for a home tinker is that one bottle is slightly expensive but sold a cases of product only. It is like hotdogs & buns. You get 7 hotdogs but 8 buns! I may never make it to London but would shake your hand and then converse for hours. I enjoy! The inner child is still home.

Tim does all his own stunts!!!

I love how tim hunkin being very honest with his opinions and dont cut out any failed attempts.

Your videos taught me more than any teacher I've ever had. Thank you.

Very useful and practical! One comment: epoxy and acrylic glues need a bit of layer thickness. With 0,1mm upto 0,3mm there's a way for the glue to stretch a bit and even the stress out. So don't clamp too hard. Using distance pieces (paper, metal, glass balls) makes it easier to maintain the appropriate distance. Oh, and rough op the surfaces! First clean, then use scotch brite.

Thrilled to have found Tim after so many years.

From my experience of 30 years of teaching technology in schools: If I am sticking say wood to metal, I first coat the metal with Loctite and then glue the wood to that with cyano. Cyanoacrylates can be bought in a variety of viscosities, the thicker ones are much more controllable and with less tendency to run down your arms and glue your elbows to the table. Kicker/activator can be bought at any model shop, you don't have to buy mitrebond to get it. Also great for neutralising superglue spills. Zap and it's set and you can scrape it off the table later. There is a trick, much promoted on RU-vid, of using bicarbonate of soda to fill gaps and then trickling super glue on to that, it sinks in a sets very quickly. I don't know what the supposed advantage of bicarb is, but almost any dust works, the wood flour dust that collects inside your bandsaw is particularly good and creates a very strong composite material with the glue. Wood dust has the advantage that you don't have to go into the kitchen to look for it. Wrapping a joint in cotton and letting super glue soak into that, makes a very strong joint too. The trick with solvent Tensol is to use a small metal tipped pipette to apply a small dribble to the assembled joint and let it run in by capillary action. I get a clear joint about three times out of four. The surfaces to be joined need to be accurately flat it but works better if it they (or one of them.) are not polished.

PVA is Poly Vinyl ACETATE. It also stands for Poly Vinyl Alcohol, but that's a different thing -- used as a mould release agent for fibreglass, and the opposite of a glue :)

Another good use for the 2 part CA based mitre glue is for holding joints while they glue with pva. Put the pva over most of one of the surfaces, and a few spots of the mitre glue on the rest. The CA will then hold the joint firm long enough for the PVA to cure

Literally watched glue dry and was entertained the whole time. Amazing show.

Another fantastic gem Mr Hunkin, BUT... from one British maker of things to another, I am wondering why you didn't discuss the strongest glue of all? Weetabix!!! 🤔🤣😂⚒️🇬🇧 (I know... I should have left the bowl to soak overnight.. I know) 🙈

Some 25 years ago I saw a construction worker installing threaded rod into holes drilled into concrete, using special glass test-tubes with the threaded rod sticking out and the test tube pre- filled with colored beads of epoxy resin. Chuck the threaded rod in a cordless drill, stick it in the hole, and spin it with the drill; the glass tube breaks and the spinning threaded rod mixes the epoxy.

Superglue (cyanoacrylate), particularly the very thin variety is great for strengthening old, weak wood. It wicks into the pores and sets very hard, but brittle. I use it for repairing piano pinblocks, bridges, and soundboards - it has good sound transmission qualities. The one thing it really lacks is shear strength - but when you are using it to make a composite, it's excellent.

Hi Tim - have you used UV glue - if not I think you'll like it. Comes in a little tube, sometimes with a UV LED in the back (e.g. Bostik Fix & Flash) - it's clear and quite runny, but sets hard in a couple of seconds when you shine UV at it - very useful for things you want to adjust then set in position.

Occasionally, RU-vid sends me a suggested video that is actually worthwhile. This is one such example, thanks for the content and I've subscribed!

(I live near Minneapolis St. Paul) A friend of mine in highschool, her dad was a chemist in the liquid adhesives department at 3M. Fascinating guy he was. To bad he couldn't have guest stared in this episode 😂 have you ever tried the super glue and baking soda trick?

Found this channel yesterday and instant sub. Cannot look away. Took a bit but I recognized Tim's work from TV decades ago and couldn't put my finger on it until I hit the remastered ones. I was a big fan when I was a kiddo.

I envy that Tim's curiosity is boundless........

Thank you, sir. An educational video that isn't boring.

I remember original Secrete Life of Machines. Glad I found you still doing these. Added you to my wood shop's educational classes.

Glues that work from a life-time of experience...Who knew? Many thanks Tim, invaluable.

These videos are endlessly fascinating. I also find Tim Hunkin's honesty refreshing - even when demonstrations don't exactly go to plan, they're included!

For your Whack-a-Banker machine, to help your hammers last even longer you could make the platform surface around the area where the bankers are popping up from, out of some kind of foam (even if it were 6in diameter rings of foam that fit around each of the holes) that would absorb a lot of the impact (the foam rings could be a replaceable item too)

This series is amazing, thank you! Couple extra tips I've picked up with respect to two part epoxies: Surface wetting goes both ways. With thicker more viscous epoxy thoroughly wetting both surfaces will ensure a good bond and if you leave the "squeeze-out" alone it will easily chip off later with a sharp chisel. Wiping off the squeeze-out will push some of the epoxy into the surface and make it more difficult to clean up later if you didn't do a thorough wiping (especially for porous surfaces like wood). Probably less applicable to thinner less viscous epoxy. The other tip is to always save any left-over epoxy and the applicator you used. Pile up all the excess epoxy into a glob and stick the applicator into it. You can now refer to this to check how the epoxy is setting up instead of messing with the thing you are gluing. This can let you know if your epoxy batch was bad and didn't work and give you an idea of when you can safely move the object without it just falling apart.

I quite like the versatility of “Bondic” It is a thick ish liquid that is then hardened by ultra violet light. It’s usefulness is mainly that you can build up subsequent layers, then harden them, each layer taking mere seconds to harden.

I can’t begin to tell you how pleased I am to see you making these videos Tim! I’ve rewatched Secret Life of Machines many, many times! As a Yank, I remember seeing that show on cable tv in the early 90’s it was and continues to be one of my all time favorite shows ever made!

With this channel youtube has come of age.

So many times people sharing knowledge come off as arrogant. You sir do not. To me that is the difference between knowing facts and being wise. Thank you.

I am being pedantic, but epoxy doesn't "dry", it cures by chemical reaction (as does superglue, but by a totally different type of reaction). 5- minute epoxy isn't ideal for joining metal, but a slow cure epoxy will grip incredibly well as long as the metals are degreased, and sanded to rough up the surface. JB-Weld in particular, containing powdered steel is incredible stuff, people have repaired cracked engine blocks with it. There's a 5 minute JB-KWIK and the stronger, slow cure JB-WELD variety. Devcon is another excellent epoxy brand.

Thank you for taking the time to share your know-how with us. From one tinkerer to another.

I just found this channel a day ago and it's the best!! Reminds me of simple and better times, love this guy!!

Incredibly useful to hear about the real world applications you’ve put these glue into, especially the fail states you’ve experienced. Thanks for passing your experience on!

Let's all stick with Tim.

im ... glued ... to this channel ... lol

As a professional R&D chemist, I worked with glues and cements for many purposes. You know your stuff, mate.

I've been stuck to Tim for over 3 decades!

You can't imagine how much I appreciate your thorough videos. Who else is gonna teach me this stuff?

Initially, I thought model at 20:38 was a tooth! 'Loved the Psychofluorescent Radiomirror, by the way!

I missed one thing at the beginning : "I am no expert on glue but I will share my experiences with it ..... " That remark at the beginning of each episode always makes me smile 😊 Lovely and great info ..... and fun. Thank you Tim 🤝👍🇳🇱

A sticky subject handled well.... I was glued to his every word. I will be sticking around for the next once.

Loving this series Tim, and while I remember watching your TV show when I was a kid, I hadn't realised howuch you were like my father in law! It's uncanny.

My son and I are very much enjoying these videos. We shall be watching this episode later, I can hardly wait!

'Sikaflex'-type polyurethane is great, not just for glass to metal. Withstands higher temperatures than silicones. I've even used it to bond a metal plate over hole in car exhaust silencer. Also make objects with it to any shape or size, including any metal components while setting. For instance a drive wheel - grind down to the required diameter. Good for mending torn mounting bushes or making new ones. Mix some of it with acetone and can paint it as a rubber coating. If it gets on your fingers wipe off before sets with ordinary alcohol.

Add coarse salt in between wood to stop it sliding around when clamping, also use cotton thread as a binder, and soak in superglue for many a super strong bodge fix. Also use sticky tape and rust for..... well you know what for!!

My dad was a rolls Royce tool maker. I instinctively know why Tim loves this stuff. My dad used a hardened razor blade to cut an oil channel in the merlin.

"Buttering" the adhesive on BOTH surfaces with a brush, finger or scraper (depending on the viscosity) makes an enormous difference to the final bond strength!

Too many channels focus on the end result rather than the basics and it's is great you do.

Been watching a lot of the Secret life of series for college Mechatronics class. Pretty cool videos. I have gained a urge to watch more of your videos.

You’ll not find more skillsets in one person than on this channel, engaging, inspiring and a breath of fresh air. Mr Hunkin, as soon as my kids are old enough, I’ll be showing them your videos, Thankyou.

Excellent video Tim. A thing that you can do with double sided tape is taping down thin work to a machine table. I always used the white tape so you can get the work off the table easier. The table must be absolutely clean and without dings on the surface when the tape is applied. Aluminum can be easily milled and drilled using this method. It is important to have the work piece in as much contact with the tape as possible. Cheers from NC/USA

So super useful & interesting. Glues have vexed me more than any other thing that comes to mind. I had the propaganda that pva wood glues were stronger than wood, but I proved to myself that they need warm temperatures when bonding or fail miserably. I repaired the shaft on a hoe with a scarf joint & pva & had it fail repeatedly till I abandoned the idea. So much great advice & practical information here, a delight from beginning to end. Thank you for sharing!

OMG! MY MAN! I got hooken on "Secret Life Of Machines" through SBS Network Australia back in the 1990s! So happy to see this!

First class program passes on his knowledge with great interest

A little trick I use to avoid have the wood to move when clamping, like in 10:00, is to add the smallest bit of med-coarse sal. Just a couple of grains will embed themselves on the wood and avoid any slipping at all.

Hey Tim, not sure if you see this or not. I have come across some 'rubber toughened' CA glue. It's quite nice. It's much less brittle than typical CA. It's very good for a bonding a variety of materials together. Starbond in USA has been great for me. I find that CA products of different sources, they differ a bit in quality. Some brands activators cause the glue to aerate a bit which weakens it. So, l sort by application needs and cost. Fantastic video. The self wicking Loctite is used very often to add friction to plates which you don't want to slide, say after a precision adjustment.

Tim is one of last the eccentric inventors that Britain produced. Unless you count Colin an his mobility scoot...

Some instrument repairers are using *fish glue* because it adheres well to old, dried up, crystallized hide glue . Another unusual glue application: people on RU-vid are making wooden pens on a lathe and finishing them with thin coats of superglue, buffing it to a high gloss.

For sticking laminate to something using contact adhesive, a useful trick my father told me is to lay a sheet of polythene on the plywood (or whatever), covering the whole surface. Then lay the laminate on top of the polythene, line everything up, and gradually pull the polythene out from between the sheets. Works very well indeed. I had a kitchen work surface, which was fitted in place round a chimney breast and into a corner of the room. I cut the polythene pretty much to size and shape, the laminate had to be exactly to size and shape on all but one side. Put down the polythene, laminate on top and pulled out the polythene. Exactly in place.

_okay, I just spent just short of an hour watching a video on GLUE! ...and very good it was too_

A testament to how much people like bankers!

Your video Tim, is the most entertaining way to watch glue dry. Excellent presentation as always.

3m makes some amazing tapes! In Florida we use a VHB (very high bond) 2 sided tape to attach road signs to poles and the like. It seeps into microscopic surfaces and bonds incredibly tightly.

Awwwwe I wish he went into E6000 more! It’s unbelievably strong AND extremely flexible. I always thought that E6000 should have been called “super glue” instead. The solvent in it is more toxic than usual though and getting the glue on your hands or gluing indoors can make you very dizzy and damage your liver over time. There’s a funny story with E6000 though. Originally it was an industrial product that was not available to the general public. This man had some from his work, and his wife took it from him to glue on some rind stones. The rind stones would not come off AT ALL anymore, it was so durable that she ended up popularizing it amongst her friends and eventually the rest of the arts and crafts industry

What a great idea putting the grinder *under* the shelf instead of on top of the workbench taking up space. I'm going to change mine now since I have a low shelf like that - Thanks!

I love your channel Tim , you have a great way of giving down to earth information about everything you use and make. I think people like you are the educators of all the would be makers out there, the people who wished they could just turn sideways in their shop and ask, mate, how do id this properly? thank you kindly for going to the trouble of sharing your vast and varied experiences and knowledge.

Thank you for posting this!

Mr. Hunkin you are a true genius, great respect !

Absolutely love all your work Tim

Those videos are gold!

i'm absolutely loving the series!

Thanks Tim!!! More amazing insights!

Another excellent job Tim!!

These videos are most invaluable. Thanks Tim!

Fantastic episode Tim. A note on Un-glueing Hot melt : alcohol (IPA or Meths) will immediately break the joint.

Thanks, love all your work, past and present.

21:04 bench grinder mounted underneath a shelf. Brilliant.

Would love to work with this guy every day. Brilliant videos saw some of the earliest ones in the 90s. Really glad to see them again and the new ones thanks Tim 😃😃🎰

Works of art, I love the wooden figures x

Thank you Mr. Hunkin, wonderful!

Excellent video as usual.

Great stuff!