Adhesives

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OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Danny Baronian on April 23, 2002

What type of adhesives are you using in your work? Best - worst, what to keep away from?

Wood to wood, Metal to metal, HDU, PVC, or any combination thereof.

D. Bernhardt

teriffic topic and very dear to my heart.....i have to qualify all that i'll try and fit in this box is based on personal experience and too much reading
West system....great stuff but absolutely MUST be used according to the manual. bonding boards(edge-to-edge).....406 micro fibers with the pre-requisite quick "prime" first. if you here popping sounds when taking off your clamps you haven't got a good bond. the sound is from starved joints letting go. however if used with the fibers i can't imagine a better adhesive especially for large glue ups. it is brittle and for this reason i never use it for foam-to-wood or foam-to-foam. that is for the poly-urethanes (gorilla). another thing i've noticed is that a good 60-tooth blade on the table saw seems to leave a better edge than the one from a jointer. the jointer seems to polish it a little too much. a slow steady feed rate and presto!! for laminating (one plank ontop of another) i go again for the polys. is way too easy to clean-up and has a small gap filling quality which i prize as a water barrier. if you have even the smallest gap between something like a piece of moulding and your panel....kiss it good-bye or pray.
Poly-urethanes......i find myself using them more and more. for foam to wood or mdo....stays flexible so when these things move at different rates you still keep your bond. i've had west system for a foam-to-foam project(letters on top of) break after about a year and was repaired with silicone..that was 6 or 7 years ago and is hanging tough still. i'm sure that as with all adhesives you need to get right down to the surface. you don't want to try and glue foam to paint. at my shop all our work tables are covered with latex paint so that when we need to clean off the drips (west or gorilla) they pop right off with a scrapper. not so if the table is raw. i wouldn't want to rely on a joint like that without a real fine liability clause in my insurance.

Kent Smith

For HDU to HDU I like PD Bond from Precision Board as the joint will sand or blast the same as the material. For metal or other materials to brick or other masonary, Lord makes a particularly nice epoxy with an application gun for no waste. Their technicians will also help with other application needs and help determine the amount needed for the job and their formulas are more flexible than others I have seen for good expansion/contraction variables. The West system is reliable but I find it to be more difficult to apply and not as universal in applications. Single component glues are not as reliable for durability since the technology has evolved so much past that point now.

Vance Galliher

hi danny,....... adhesives is probably the most confusing area in my creative process !!......no other area leaves me more in doubt than this one !! i primarily make dimentsional signs, and i not only join like materials together, but also "unlike" materials........if its wood to wood, hdu to hdu, or pvc to pvc, my choice is west system two part epoxy...........i use gorilla glue for metal to metal,or metal to pvc, or hdu to metal... i use alot of 1/8" aluminum in my work and have bonded metal to metal with 3m vhb tape...and some of these are pieces that are above store entrances) i don't use much mdo anymore( starting to use dibond instead).....however, i'm doing a piece now where i will join an alum panel to a mdo background with 1/4" pvc spacers......so i'm laminating three different materials together.....and i never know what adhesive to use ??...(i call all the tech folks for the various glues and there are always some grey areas).........the gorilla folks say yes to this combination, but i must remove the paint from the mdo where the pvc spacers will be .....god i wish there was just one universal glue that would work for everything....... so i am disappointed that your question is not generating more response........come you signmakers....show up !! thanks, vance

Mike Jackson - Wood to Wood

Hi Danny,
I haven't done much wood work in a while, but I would immediately go to West Systems epoxy again. We did have to spline a piece of plywood the other day for a couple of 5'x 5' MDO Route 66 style signs. I put the joint at one of the horizontal lines on the design, so it should be almost unnoticeable when up.

That epoxy is tough stuff!
Mike