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Adhesiveology

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I have a specific question that Mike Mc Crea can probably answer but in the more general context I would like to start one thread where the adhesive experts ( I am not) can tell us what adhesives they use for what from glueing patches to gunwales.

Specific question: What adhesive would be best to glue the portage pads in my Mad River Monarch back firmly to their hard plastic subform? After some four thousand miles of being exposed to the wind one half is pretty loose.

Gorilla? Something else?
 
Hi YC, Just thinking here, the plastic part, is it smooth and slick? If it is, is there anyway where you could rough up the surface with coarse sand paper? Or any other way where the glue could have a chance to grip to something?
I've never had a place where the Gorilla Glue failed to hold something. It's funny stuff in use, as it starts to work it goes though a froth-at-the-mouth routine and expands to where if the parts can move at all they will be pushed apart. The only answer is to have both parts held together to where they stay put.
Over on the DIY section, with my cheap canoe rack I used GG to hold the pads on and didn't hold them down very well as the glue set up. It really didn't matter in use but it doesn't look nice.
Of course a certain amount of glue squishes out when gluing, if you watch close there comes a time when the surface is just "tacky" and the extra bead of unneeded glue can be pulled away easy as anything. If you miss that time is a regular job of work to cut away and then sand it off.

Best wishes, Rob
 
I have a specific question that Mike Mc Crea can probably answer but in the more general context I would like to start one thread where the adhesive experts ( I am not) can tell us what adhesives they use for what from glueing patches to gunwales.

Specific question: What adhesive would be best to glue the portage pads in my Mad River Monarch back firmly to their hard plastic subform? After some four thousand miles of being exposed to the wind one half is pretty loose.

Gorilla? Something else?

I would hesitate to claim the mantle of adhesives expert. Adhesives experimenter perhaps.

The yoke pads on my Monarch are some kind of foam coated in black vinyl, adhered to an aluminum yoke. My preferred choices of adhesives there would be either contact cement or epoxy resin.

The upside of contact cement (DAP Weldwood, red can) would be that once you pressed the foam into place it would be immovable stuck in position and you wouldn’t have to clamp it, weight it down or hold it in place until the adhesive set. The downside to contact cement is that if you got the alignment wrong you would be SOL, ‘cause you can’t move contact cemented foam once it touches a glued-to surface.

The upside of epoxy (or other glues that don’t instantly stick) is that you would have time to adjust the pad position is you missed the alignment, and the downside is that you would need to keep the foam held in position until it was adhered.

Other adhesives and uses – Hmmm, well, I am fond of G/flex because it sticks to dang near everything and can be made in teeny batches (the 50/50 mixing ratio is easy to eyeball).

For vinyl pad D-rings on Royalex hulls (or other vinyl-to-vinyl applications) I like Vynabond, although I am extremely careful in application, making sure it has dried enough that it doesn’t eat the foam core of the hull.

http://www.clavey.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/VinInst.pdf

Other adhesives – I am sold on the effectiveness of running a bead of Plumber’s Goop around the edges of minicel (and D-rings, and etc) to help prevent infiltration of water and grit loosening the contact cement/Vynabond underneath.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Amazing-Goop-3-7-fl-oz-Plumbing-Adhesive-150011/100372167

For small repairs that need to remain both waterproof and pliable (waders, wetsuits, Mukluk seams, etc) I use Aquaseal (or, actually Aquaseal/Cotol mixed 3/1).

https://www.mcnett.com/gearaid/aquaseal#10110

Epoxy putty – In applications where I need to fill some void or do not need flexibility I turn to either PC-7 or J-B Weld. They seem very similar in effectiveness. PC-7 mixes to the consistency of thick peanut butter, J-B Weld is more akin to toothpaste (and cures faster than PC-7)

http://www.pcepoxy.com/our-products/paste-epoxies/pc-7.php

http://www.jbweld.com/

Lastly, tapes. Nashua 357 is still the gold standard for duct tape

http://www.uline.com/BL_6123/Nashua...gclid=CNODlMrx0cACFSbl7AodiyIAYA&gclsrc=aw.ds

At $26 a roll it should be. Gorilla Tape is a close second, and it is available everywhere.

For permanent gear repair tape I use Tenacious Tape, which now comes in colors.

http://www.rei.com/product/783045/gear-aid-tenacious-tape-repair-tape

I do use other adhesives for non-boating, non-gear purposes, including Titebond for nuts when I don’t have nylocks, superglue for small non-critical repairs, wood glue, Gorilla Glue, Super 77 spray….

You asked, and I haven’t even looked in the glues and adhesives box yet.

What was Forrest Gump’s line “That’s all I have to say about that”
 
Can't add much to Mike's post. I am also only an experimenter. :)

As I mentioned in Glenn's gun'l thread, I have used J-B Quick Weld with good success to patch gouges (including one large one that went clear into the core) on vinyl gun'ls.

Weldwood contact cement has worked really well for me with mini-cell foam on smooth surfaces. I just went through a lot of it this spring while doing a re-surface of Formica counter-top. ;) Good ventilation (or vapor mask) is required!

Tape....I recently discovered this stuff called EternaBond Microseal tape. The RV industry uses it for permanent roof leak repair. It was recommended to me for repairing a seam in my tent-trailer wall (vinyl window to wall fabric). Worked like gangbusters! That stuff sticks to anything, but I don't know if there is any way to remove it later for a nicer-looking repair. I used it this summer to patch a tear in one of my float bags, and it ain't coming loose...at all. I have decided that a small roll of it will be with me on all extended trips. Bloody expensive though - and like I said....permanent.

http://www.eternabond.com/?Click=202...FQhbfgodSAkAKw
 
I'm no expert on adhesives, but I've glued foam in every canoe I've owned (except wood) for 35 years with contact cement. The foam I've contact cemented includes knee pads, knee mats, knee cups, saddles, pedestals, hip blocks and portage pads. The surfaces I've contact cemented foam to are Royalex (vinyl), Kevlar, other composite canoes, plastic kayaks, and wood portage yokes. I've had some large knee pads come loose after several years, but I just re-cemented the part that came loose.

One guy even attached a Wenonah canoe foot brace with contact cement on both sides of a thin strip of foam. I thought that was a very interesting way to avoid rivets and screws, so I copied the picture off the web.

Foam%2520Mount%2520Wenonah%2520Footbrace.jpg
 
Oh - that's a great idea, Glenn! I'm just about to do the same in my Sojourn. Didn't have a problem with using rivets, but I like that much better. I have yet to have construction grade contact cement let go from metal, wood or rx without a lot of persuasion.
 
I was just remembering that I repaired an aluminum gun'l with J-B Weld. I had this Penobscot that was seriously bashed. The gun'll was bent and even had a crack most the way through . I straightened it out pretty good, gave it a couple extra thwarts, and patched the crack with J-B. That was several years ago, and it still is holding. That boat is my son's poling boat now. Thinking further back - I had to repair a rock-damaged aluminum case cover on a motorbike one time, so I could get back home from the mountains without losing the engine oil. All we had on hand was J-B Weld. Patched the ~1/4" hole with a liberal application of the stuff. When I took the cover off later to get it fixed properly (welded), the J-B had to be ground off.
 
Oh - that's a great idea, Glenn! I'm just about to do the same in my Sojourn. Didn't have a problem with using rivets, but I like that much better. I have yet to have construction grade contact cement let go from metal, wood or rx without a lot of persuasion.

If you opt for that solution the separating area between the minicel and the rounded top (and, I suspect, bottom) edges of the foot brace bar, where you can see the contact cement pulled away from the foam and foot brace bar, is exactly the type of situation in which I would lay a bead of Plumber’s Goop.


That open separation is just the type of area that would allow infiltration of water, dirt and debris and possibly loosen the contact cement adhesion over time.
 
What about Plexus? I understand manufacturers glue foot pegs and thwarts in with it.
Turtle
 
What about Plexus? I understand manufacturers glue foot pegs and thwarts in with it.
Turtle

Turtle, I know Plexus works to adhere the plastic railed foot braces to a canoe, but those plastic rails can be bent somewhat to conform to the curvature of a hull, so the Plexus is evenly distributed along the length of the foot brace rail.

The metal railed Wenonah foot brace rails can not be bent (well, they could, but that would crimp the sliding bar adjustment), so the Plexus would likely be adhered only at the ends of the rail.

I’ve never worked with Plexus, but the installation application seems pretty straight forward – mark the locations, sand and acetone both surfaces, mix the Plexus and hold in place until stuck.

Apparently it is possible to screw up even that simple procedure. In the shop box of miscellaneous foot braces and pedals I have a brace that was owner Plexused into a Bell which subsequently failed catastrophically.

I have installed metal railed foot pedals (Werners) in a hull by gluing, but in that more intricate installation I shaped a piece of wood for each side, so the back side of the wood conformed exactly* to the curvature of the hull, with the front side remaining flat.

I bolted the Werner bars to the wood, counter sinking the nuts and washers on the back, and then epoxied the custom shaped wood to the sides of the canoe.

*Well, actually I stuck a piece of kevlar felt on the curved back of the wood and saturated that with epoxy; my custom shaped and sanded curvature was as close as I could get to matching the sides of the hull, and the match was close but not exact.
 
Plexus is used to install thwarts ( fabric over foam) to hulls too. It sets fast.. Sometimes too fast.

We tried them for Harmony Footpegs and the adhesion was miserable.. As predicted the footpegs don't adhere evenly overall. The plastic footpeg track was not curved. The hull was... And the middle that was not adhering couldn't be clamped cause the Plexus had dried.

Mike.. I contact cemented ( weldwood) the foam padding to the support structure; which is indeed metal. So far so good.
 
. I contact cemented ( weldwood) the foam padding to the support structure; which is indeed metal. So far so good.

I know I harp on this a lot, but that edge between the flat metal yoke support and the curved edge of the vinyl covered pads begs for a bead of Plumber’s Goop. A small bead dries clear, practically invisible and fills that |( gap nicely.

Any hardware store, and you’ll have enough Plumber’s Goop left over to do a dozen other adhesive/sealant protected edges. Think the edges of any minicel glued into the hull.

Just remember to thoroughly clean the nozzle when you are done. I run pipe cleaners through the nozzle, and clean the threads on both the nozzle and Goop tube with a piece of paper towel so I can use them again. If you are really anal you can “grease” the threads on the tube before screwing the cap back on with a thin smear of Vaseline. BTW, that is highly recommended for the threads on tubes of Aquaseal, lest you never again remove the cap.

It helps a lot to have that stuff at the ready BEFORE you lay a bead of Plumber’s Goop; it sets up fast enough that you don’t want to be hunting around for paper towels and pipe cleaners (or cotton swabs) to clean out the nozzle and threads.
 
Gotta love the search function. I've been puzzling on how to mount the footbrace I bought last week into my Rx Wilderness without drilling. And yes I'll use plumbers goop as well.

One guy even attached a Wenonah canoe foot brace with contact cement on both sides of a thin strip of foam. I thought that was a very interesting way to avoid rivets and screws, so I copied the picture off the web.

Foam%2520Mount%2520Wenonah%2520Footbrace.jpg
 
Eclectic products, the people who make Amazing Goop, make a wide range of adhesives based mostly on the same compound, Styrene Butadiene Copolymer. The main difference, as far as I can see, is viscosity. Their product range includes Shoe Goo, E6000 Adhesive and others. You can see their product lineup here:

http://eclecticproducts.com/products.html

Most of these products are not easy to come by around here, but most of my shoe soles have been reglued with Shoe Goo. I seems to hold up pretty well as long as the surfaces are clean when it is applied. I have seen E6000 in small tubes in the Megamart craft department.

There is a similar product called Through the Roof by Sashco which is a roof sealant that comes in a caulk tube, also a Styrene Butadiene Copolymer. It's cheaper if you need a lot. All of these clear compounds discolor over time from exposure to light. I don't know whether that affects their performance.
 
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