Wanted: One-Step Glue or Adhesive for ABS

MEK

More details, better answer.

Yes I thought of that after I hit the send button.

I have ABS body shapes that is ohhh,, .125" and less in thickness, that has sometimes good fit together nice and tight, other times there are gaps, You do not see the gaps, but they are there, so a watery glue won't really do it.

Right now we are using a glue that has the properties like a silicone caulking gun body. and this works great for both the tight as well as the not so tight fits. but is terribly too long set time.

I'm looking for something that is faster. that may still have some gap fiilling properties.

Still not a lot to go on, but, maybe a hot melt glue gun? The glue should stick to a clean ABS surface.

Nope, Sorry but no go on that, Thanks tho for trying to help. but the gluing parts are larger that what you could do without the glue getting too cold before finally getting the parts together.

Think of body panels of a car in size, Like if you were to join a right quarter panel to the rest of a body type of situation. several feet of a seam.

Thanks

"Think of body panels of a car in size'

You think of it, I'm going to bed.

It's done every day.

I know it's done every day, we do it every day now, but we are looking for a better way than what we are using now.

It works yes,, but it is a two part process, and slow, we'd like it to be a single component if possible, and now have to wait overnight for it to set.

Thank you All.

Acetone. $15.49 USD/gallon at Lowes.

Are you ABS to itself, or another material?

To itself as well as to painted metal.

So, you are bonding to ABS and paint, which COMPLETLY changes everything.

Garbage in garbage out!

agreed. ABS will respond to acetone like model glue. Take a calculator or some other little plastic device and pur some on. See.

Now binding to painted metal - geez. Pliogrip ^tm is expensive but it will definitely do the trick.

If you don't ask a good question, you won't get a good answer.

Bonding ABS to itself is a completely different process that bonding ABS to paint, with a metal substrate.

It doesn't sound to me as if you have done much research.

Have you talked to your current material supplier?

How about a flexible, thixotropic cyanoacrylate, with a paint on initiator.

We still don't know how big the gaps to be filled are? My crystal ball is broken.

ACETONE.

I presume that you're in USA, so suggest contact DYMAX for some UV cure adhesives.

They can provide various gels that will "squish" into small places, yet still easily fill 0.25" gap. Can be repositioned until you make it set using heat, UV exposure or other means.

3M and DUPONT would also have materials. Just contact their applications help lines and they will jump over each other trying to help.

I know that DUPONT has a 2 part epoxy series with "mixing" nozzles fitting onto the dispensing tubes.

We can give you ideas, but ultimately the specialists will end up supplying it.

You mention bonding ABS to painted metal -

There are some pretty good two part structural adhesives that can be blended in various ways (work with the suppliers) that can come in small disposable dual side by side syringe assemblies with inline mixing tubes - small quantities all the way up to compressed air driven production capability etc.

Many of these have work times down in the 1-2 minute range and set up pretty strong in 10-15 minutes - (auto assembly industry comes to mind)

Also, you might want to make sure that the structural adhesive manufacturers are involved. They might encourage you to adhere ABS to powder coated metal (plastic to plastic bonding then) but then you need to work with the powder-coater to be sure that the powder-coating is adhered well enough to the metal - or you can rip it right off the metal. Why?

The biggest difficulty is that you're working with two materials that will creep at different rates (grow in differently in length or width; driven by temperature changes) and thus, the bond is likely to be in a state of tension or compression with every temperature change away from original bond state -

You may also want to consider an adhesive with a body of thickness that can stretch and compress a bit -

just my $.02

-- Jim Wilson