That is the least understood and worst reason to think Gorilla Glue is a good choice for the A-joint. Gorilla Glues ability to "fill gaps" is not only NOT a benefit, it's actually a detriment, for the following reasons:
1) The entire idea of using a "gap filling" glue at the A-joint encourages the belief that this doesn't have to be a dead-nuts fit - hell, just make it sloppy so it's easy to put together and let the glue fill it in. So, IMO, it encourages imprecise, amateurish machining. Also,
2) Gorilla Glue is nothing more than high-density polyurethane foam. When it expands to "fills" gaps, the only thing it fills them with is gas (read: AIR). The structural rigid plastic (polyurethane) content does not - indeed, CANNOT - increase in volume; only the result of off-gassing, which creates hollow bubbles, can make that gooey shit expand ("fill gaps") - and when it does expand it becomes structurally weaker. In fact, the more it expands the weaker it gets – Gorilla Glue’s own product literature states that. Also,
3) The end result of Gorilla Glue expanding is that it become a very light, very weak foam. Surely everyone reading this who uses the stuff has noticed that the material squeezed out of one of their gappy joints, when cured, is fragile foamy crap that can be easily picked away with a fingernail. If that seems like a good material to hold your A-joint together then why not just use old styro coffee cups or packing peanuts?
I know, I know... resident expert at every trade under the sun - Rick "scdiveteam" - contends it's great stuff because it has about a million-year "half-life" (a term he uses without even understanding it). Well Styrofoam last virtually forever too. You can break that crap up into a million tiny little beads and it still won't go away. Ever. But I wouldn't want to hold my cues together with it. We’re talking about using this soft, foamy stuff inside what is essentially a 1 ½-pound battering ram that will spend its entire life being slammed against a solid phenolic 6-ounce weight.
There are many high-grade structural epoxies that will bond a well-fitted A-joint together virtually forever. I prefer West System epoxy, and I use it by saturating each half (socket and tenon) first, allowing it to soak in for several minutes. I then use it within the actual joint as I screw the two halves together. In a very closely machined fit (NO "gaps"), with strategically placed pressure release grooves, the correct amount of epoxy will produce the best joint possible. Gorilla Glue has no place in this application.
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On a related note,
That won't be necessary, Rick... I already know what will happen - NOTHING. For a few very simple and obvious reasons that you apparently can't grasp:
1) Any epoxy used in joining a cue together will have long ago cured by the time the cue is finished and taken on a plane. So there is no "fluid" within the cue, which means no fluid dynamics involved and therefore NO "hydraulic potential" at all. The very idea that a cue could somehow “ build up hydraulic pressure” is ridiculous - I mean it's serious, SERIOUS nonsense.
2) If there is any likelihood within the A-joint construction for hydraulic forces to cause damage it would certainly happen at the exact time those forces were being generated – which is during construction. That’s the only time there are fluid dynamics at play; if the cue survives the assembly process without suffering internal hydraulic-related damage then it will NEVER experience such internal forces in the future. This is not a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of FACT.
3) Since hydraulic action CANNOT occur with a cured, solid epoxy, let's consider the related idea that an air pocket trapped inside the cue could somehow cause a problem within a "non pressurized baggage area", and that if the pressure became low enough it could cause the cue to fail somehow. Well, that pressure would be in the form of an external vacuum, and even if it were a perfect vacuum - meaning zero air pressure - the total internal force on the cue could not exceed 14 psi.
The important factor here is the "psi" part, which refers to "Pounds [per] Square Inch". Now, I can't imagine the worst cuemaker having internal gaps in his cues equaling even a small fraction of one square inch (well, maybe Rick does...), but for argument's sake let's say that our imaginary cue has a full one-square-inch surface area of internal gap in the A-joint. And let's also say that the cue began its baggage-hold journey at sea level, and that the pilot defied all airline policy AND the known laws of physics, and flew the plane to the very edge of the earth's atmosphere.
The result of that impossible scenario would be that the A-joint of the cue, with it’s HUGE one-square-inch of gap surface-area would be subject to a total force of 14 lbs – presumably straining to force the A-joint apart. As a simple thought experiment, imagine taking two 1-gallon water jugs and tethering them to the butt end of a cue butt. Now imagine holding the cue vertically and lifting straight up until you are suspending the jugs off the floor. Are you worried your A-joint might pull apart? Shit, two 400-pound Sumo wrestlers couldn’t pull a cue apart that way. The very notion that some kind of hollow or epoxy-filled pocket inside a cue could "build up hydraulic pressure" and do so is ridiculous.
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TO SUMMARIZE:
A) Machining your A-joint fit in such a manner as to have gaps that need filling is very poor workmanship, and using Gorilla Glue to “fill” those gaps is even worse. No one who understands the nature of adhesives and how Gorilla Glue works would think otherwise.
B) It is not physically possible for a cue to “build up hydraulic pressure” after it’s adhesives have cured, under ANY circumstances – especially being placed in an “unpressurized baggage area”. The very notion is laughable.
TW
