I have been looking around and I can’t seem to find a good way to glue wood and acrylic. I’m asking due to once I have my x-carve built some of my projects will include wood and acrylic. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated please.
Silicone?
20 characters…
Didn’t think it would hold foe things I’ll be making such as wood and acrylic lamps. I need it to hold tight and no flex
Flexible CA (cyanoacrylate)
2 part epoxy will bond anything.
There’s actually a web site for this sort of thing:
They suggest epoxy, as Allen Massey did, or Household Goop (and have some additional suggestions for large work).
1 Like
Medium viscosity CA (superglue) will give a very strong bond with no gaps.
@PaulKinlaw
Take it from the ski and snowboard industry where bond wood, plastic, fiberglass and metal into a gravity powered sliding tool
There’s really two ways to go about this:
Option 1: two part epoxy
Two part epoxy is a good start!!! west systems is pretty good and pretty easy to find locally http://www.westsystem.com/ss/epoxy-resins-and-hardeners
Sanding:
first you want to start off by sanding
the acrylic from the bonding side with a relativley low grit sand paper.
the purpose of this is to have a larger surface area which allows
mechanical bonding to happen.
Flame Treating
after sanding you should see some
little hairs on the acrylic; at this point you should “flame treat” the
plastic. it’s literally as simple as it sounds. you take a blow torch
and flame the plastic a little bit. not to the point where the plastic
is catching fire and melting, but enough to start seeing the surface
gloss over.
Here’s a link to a forum which has some more information on flame treating: Flame Treatment Process - Warning: Engineering Content - Ski Builders Forum
after these steps, the acrylic should bond to the wood. but if you apply enough stress to that plastic, its gonna pop right off.
Option 2: Poly Urethane Glue (Gorilla Glue)
This one is much more simple but i only recommend this if you plan on
using an opaque acryclic as you will be able to see the glue foam up
from underneath. PU glue is pretty good if you dont plan on putting any
mechanical stress on your work piece after its bonded.
Side note
If youre willing to substitute acrylic for another plastic; you should look up something called Ultra High Molecular Weight Poly Ethelene
(UHMWPE), it’s used for base material in skis and snowboards and
generally specially chemically treated to bond with epoxy.
hope that helps
-ajb
1 Like
Never thought I would need a site like this, but now I see I was blind. GREATEST WEBSITE EVER!! (besides Inventables)
1 Like
Be cautious on the advice to use two part epoxy to join wood and plastics.
I’m still experimenting, after having used A LOT of epoxy and finding it bonds great, but abhors heat.
Nearly every turned item, which is two pieces of wood over clear acrylic or Plexi of varying thicknesses and width, I made using epoxy and that I had stored in my garage is showing signs of failure due to the high temp (115 degrees). That’s a different word, of course, than a set of skis or a snow board suffers.
For reference, the plastic was sanded with sixty grit and I used 2:1 epoxy and 1:1.