How to Glue Silicone and Nylon

Thera band is less reactive. Every glue sticks definitely more to nylon. I used abrasion on nylon and then alcohol on both materials but I want to try your suggestion with Toluene and see if there is any change.

I didn't use a primer. So that's something I can try too.

I just ordered the RTV 732.

I recall a sodium etch as being useful for bonding PTFE- don't know if that's practical for you to try though. I think it was sodium dissolved in a mixture of naphthalene and xylene. Potassium works too.

Tetra-Etch.

I don't think it, or cyanoacrylates, will work well on silicone.

Cyanoacrylates. We don't have them in the 1940s.

What about sewing? At Boeing we sewed rubber (or something like it) to a mesh which was the intake tear off protector on various projects.

Most sheeting is bonded with an acrylic adhesive. The surface is chemically etched.

You can buy silicon rubber sheet prep. with adhesive on it.

Try Tech-Bond's Poly Prep and Bonding Agents

http://www.tech-bond.net/gluethepoly_snylonetal.html

I haven't used it myself but have personally seen it used and it worked very great. The bond still is intact after several years. They act as an etchant and a bonder for the surfaces of nylon to silicone rubber.

Good Luck, Old Salt

I would try first lightly sanding, then silicone I. You can thin it with naphtha if it's too thick. My second choice would be Goop. Cure in a warm place, in the sun in a bag, toaster oven on warm, resting on top of a stereo . . . If possible, put some small ventilation holes in at least one of the sheets to speed curing.

How many bonds do you need to make?

If for industrial process, then I'd investigate "vibration welding" or far field ultrasonic welding. Expensive set-up, but highly reliable processes. Basically melts the material interfaces and mixes them together creating the bond.

The processes you suggest only work if the two materials to be bonded are both thermoplastics.

Silicone is not a thermoplastic, it is a thermoset. (it chemically crosslinks) It doesn't melt with heat or vibration, it just chars.

Something I played with but that didn't work for my purposes, at the time, was sewing natural fibers to the nylon with a long zigzag stitch and "soaking" the stitching and fibers with silicone. And, of course, silicone sticks to itself, really well. So, then you simply silicone the silicone piece to the silicone impregnated fibers.

If you dampen the fiber strip (I used wool yarn and frayed linen, with linen giving the best performance for my purposes) before you press/soak the silicone into the fibers, it will cure very quickly.

I wasn't able to use it for my particular need, at the time, but it's viable and 100% open source technique. You might have to tweak it a bit for your own purposes and you can't patent it as there is previous artwork, but it's my artwork so you can do anything else you can think of with this technique. Use it, make products or other materials with it, whatever - if you were to manufacture nylon textiles with heavy, natural fiber stripes, I'd even buy some. I went with a simpler solution but only because I didn't have time to make the amount I needed. Would have been better with this method, but it's good enough for my purposes.

For other purposes, you can dampen natural fiber textiles and then squeegee silicone into the fibers - by squeegee, it would be like silkscreen printing, but with silicone. Of course, you can add some acrylic paint to the silicone to color it if you work fast, as the acrylic will cure the silicone from the inside out.

Synthetic fibers sort of work, too, but there just aren't enough little "grabbers" for the silicone to latch onto for my purposes.

To soak fabric with silicone, you can thin it with some solvents. Naptha(xylene?) is one, non vegetable mineral oil is supposed to work, too. Charcoal lighter fluid? Gasoline(US speak for auto fuel) or petrol? (These solvents tend to have different names in different countries.)

Thinning silicone caulking is a good way to seam seal tents. Thin it out and brush on. Those so called "seam sealers" they sell in stores are worthless.

Here is some goo dinfo: http://forums.gardenweb.com/discussions/1472166/using-silicone-caulk-as-a-mold-material