Gluing camera screws

[j.e.simmons]

Thanks. I’m thinking of a metal camera, though the wood camera solutions are good to post, too. When I looked on Loctite’s website, I didn’t see the purple or green anymore. I do see them on Grainger’s site.

I have shellac. I may try that.

[Greg]

JB Weld ?????? That's permanent !

You are right, I should have been a bit more specific. In the past I had reinserted the screws till they were 90% in there. Then just under the head of the screws I placed the tiniest drop/dab of JB Weld. Then finally screwing the screws in all the way and wiping the heads clean. The JB Weld is definitely not applied to the threads but to just under the head of the screw as to only prevent its rotation and not secure the screw in the wood. This worked for me years ago when I was restoring a wooded view camera. The previous owner(s) must have repeatedly removed and reinserted some of the screws in the B&J Commercial camera's bed hinge. They way too easily screwed into the wood, and intern self unscrewed themselves when I used the camera.

[Paul Ron]

loc tite comes in several grades. the blue or gray is the best for your application.

for wood screws, a tiny bit of carpenters glue and a toothpick will hold as good as new. just dont over stuff the hole or you may run the risk of splitting the wood.

[Drew Bedo]

Glued-in screws?

Metal-to-metal: Loc-Tite

Metsl into wood: Fill the hole with wood putty and re-drill. Anot5her method is to just jamb in tooth picks and screw in the screw agsin.

[Drew Wiley]

Shhhh .... I'd hate for my wife to read all this and start snooping around for evidence of toothpicks glued into the table I built which is supporting this computer station. Let's just call it a "trade secret" for now.

[LabRat]

Or for metal, a drop of superglue...

Or for wood, a toothpick with a drop of superglue... Penetrates and hardens pick and surrounding area...

Steve K

[Drew Wiley]

The trouble with cyanoacrylate superglues and fast thin epoxies too, is that you might be able to later loosen up things again if necessary with a solvent like acetone, or you might not be able to. Or you might not want to risk what a solvent like that would do to adjacent surfaces or materials on your camera. Don't paint yourself into a corner. Old school shellac sealant had the advantage of being softened either by alcohol or heat.

Somebody will probably get pissed off with yet another anecdote; but here it goes anyway ... One of my earlier jobs in this area involved selling a lot of specialized precision tools and fasteners to mechanics. The older person who coached me had previously been an optical engineer for a NASA satellite program. He told me stories about back when superglues were not yet an item you could find in the store, but they made them themselves in a NASA chemistry dept. But even at NASA, most people didn't know about the stuff yet. So he would get a little dropper bottle of cyanoacrylate and walk up to some co-worker and say, "Hey, check out this new lubricant", Then squeeze a little on the unsuspecting persons finger, and that person would naturally rub it between their fingers.... then a trip to the clinic to see if the doctor or nurse could get those fingers apart safely with a razor blade or scalpel. That was common practical joke in hardware stores a decade later, but NASA folk seem to have beaten everyone to it.

[Jody_S]

I don't know why there's a multi-page discussion here on gluing camera screws, it's pretty obvious taking cameras apart which screws needed it and which didn't, and how it was applied. Screws were locked into place with a dab of red or green gloop which breaks easily with mechanical force or can be dissolved with acetone and removed. I keep a little bottle of black nail polish on my desk for that purpose, always to be applied in such a fashion that it can be removed by the next person to work on the camera.

There are any number of tricks for stripped wood screws, many of them involve glue, but that's properly a restoration job and not 'gluing' a screw. I've found wood glue mixed with sawdust generally does the job, wood glue alone is too prone to shrinkage and binding to the screw, epoxy is too permanent unless you let it dry and pre-drill, at which point it's too brittle. But people in this thread will say the exact opposite, and if it works for them, then they're right too.

[BrianShaw]

I use red nail polish.

While toothpicks work (for a while), when I want the repair to last I drill the hole a bit oversize and glue in a piece of dowel so the screw goes into fresh wood.

And regarding the NASA story… an old tale and an act that would get the fool severely reprimanded and quite possibly fired for cause if in my shop.

[Paul Ron]

hahahaha super glue stories can be helarious and im sure every practical joker in the universe has a few good ones. someone in my shop got stuck on the toilet seat... yup superglued! a bit of acetone got his ass out of the john real quick!

brian, you must look great in red nail polish.