Erik Levin 
To: Porch 
Subject: Re: [OldTools] crystal
Message-ID: <1123015711.117555.1507759564185@m...>
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"If you want to glue, and the glass shop has no clue, you might do well with UV
curing gel. The local nail salon will have this, and the light to cure it,
too.....What is the worst result? It doesn't do it and you need to soak the
thing in acetone for a while to clean it and start over?...
Well, no.  The worst result would be that continued exposure to UV would cause
the adhesive to crosslink, becoming insoluble and irreversible, and also
changing the color of the glue line to something glaringly apparent. Or
continued exposure to UV (or just additional time to allow reactions to go to
completion) could cause the glue line to become weak and brittle, allowing the
crystal to drop off in response to a little jar, knocking another divot out of
the table underneath. And, if I remember correctly, sometimes you can get both
weakness/brittleness and irreversability/insolubility in the same repair, for
that little fillip of ironic bitterness.

Thirty years ago, when I was young and enthusiastic, I paid attention to a wide
range of conservation literature, and to the best of my memory these were all
problems commonly encountered with the first generation of new "permanent "
adhesives that had been accepted by the early conservators. I don't know the
current state of play, but if you decide to go with glass adhesives on the
original crystal, then research very thoroughly, and do the research in recent
professional conservation literature, not in hobby or do-it-yourself sources,
not in thinly disguised manufacturer's hype. I'm not saying that adhesives are
the wrong way to go, because I am decades behind on developments. But myinstinct
is that it would be better to drill a new hole in the old crystal, or get an
entirely new crystal.

Tom Conroy