Modern adhesives

[Mike K]

I was talking to somebody about welding aluminium panels . He said that the auto industry now uses adhesives in many applications , instead of welding . He showed me an adhesive made by Teroson -Terostat 9220 .

9220 is a structural adhesive used by panel beaters etc to glue stuff on .. even structural things such as roofs .

Anyone got any thoughts ?

Mike

[Richard Farrant]

Hi Mike,

I am not familiar with the adhesive you are naming, but I have used a Loctite product, which sounds similar. This I first used about 15 years ago, Loctite used to come to the Workshops and demonstrate new products, the name of this one escapes me now but it was a structural adhesive, I would have to search around for the literature. it was also used in the motor industry, Leyland were using it to secure cab panels, as an example. The guy would stick to pieces of sheet steel together as a lap joint and about half hour later, with two vise grips, he would generally fail to seperate them with out screwing the metal up. The adhesive was in two parts, a spray on activator and a tube of adhesive, from memory, the surfaces did not have to be ultra grease free, which is an asset.

I have used it many times and although expensive, if there was a need for it, it was a good solution to a problem.

[Mike K]

Ok Richard ,

Teroson is a German brand I think . They make a structural adhesive for the auto industry which they claim is stronger than welding . Apparently GM and Ford here use it on their production lines , for attaching quarter panels and ancillaries etc. , to the main body . Sounds promising for us Land Rover nuts where welding the aluminium panels has always been a huge hurdle to overcome , without the correct gear and skills .

Mike

[Paul Singleton]

I am a member of another forum and panel adhesive has been a topic for quite some time. One member did a test of adhesive versus welding. Here is the link to the topic.

http://www.chevelles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177043

Paul

[Alex van de Wetering]

Mike,

I know adhesive is widely used on the Lotus Elise in stead of welding aluminium, also Audi uses a lot of adhesive in their current product line.
Sikaflex and Puraflex are two other names that are widely used in the car manufacturing world.

Alex

[Richard Farrant]

Mike,

The Loctite product I mentioned was Multibond 330.

[Snowtractor]

I watched an episode of TRUCKS! on Spike TV , sat mornings. In it they used an adhesive to bond replacement corners on a truck that had been rusted out. It was impressive stuff, they used a caulking gun to apply it and used strips of 1" flat steel with clamps to hold it for a period of time and then prepped and painted like normal. I can't remember the specs on it , but essentially it was permanent as welding with some benefits. These included no warpage of the metal from heat, less chance of water penetrating between the joining surfaces, and less protective equipment needed.
I would definitely use the product when and if I need to join panels.
ONe word of caution, proper prep is the key to success. I do believe there was something like 1 hour wokring time, but I may be wrong on that one.
Look on Spike tv's POWER BLOCK website to find trucks and links to some of the products used on the show. It was for a Chevy S-15 buildup for 10,000 dollar budget truck.
Sean

[Ken Hughes]

hi mike,we use a 3m body adhesive to glue door skins and roof skins etc on vehicles.
The local 3m rep takes you through a small course before you can buy the stuff from them,you also get a panel bonding kit with an instruction book and dvd.
A lot of new cars have panel bonded panels on them,also there is small glass beads in the glue that stop the glue being pushed out when clamped.
On a Toyota 4wd we put a roof skin on and the only areas welded are the 4 corners,the rest is glued ,even around window openings front and rear.

[Hanno Spoelstra]

Anyone heard of the Fokker F27? Designed in the 1950's, it used metal bonding on a large scale for the first time. The development of the metal gluing process, which was an important basis for the post-war success of Fokker, was by no means simple, but actually originated out of sheer poverty. Fokker did not have the money to buy machines that could mill the long aluminium skins for the wings from a larger to a thinner dimension. Sheet aluminium was available at a lower cost. The glued constructions could be subjected to considerably higher stresses than milled or riveted constructions.
Fokker continued this technique for its consecutive aircraft F28, F50, F100, and Stork/Fokker Aerospace continues to use this technique to this day make structural aircraft parts.

H.

[Richard Farrant]

Hanno,

Apparantly the well known two part epoxy adhesive, Araldite, was developed for the aircraft industry and used in construction of the DH Mosquito. As this was mostly wood, I am uncertain as to wherther it was also used to bond metal surfaces. My experience of Araldite with metals is that its adhesion is not great, even with the best prepared surfaces. Where as Loctite Multibond, sticks like sh** to a blanket

[Richard Coutts-Smith]

Mike
I have used "Devcon" a 2 part epoxy containing and used on aluminium. Readily available from the bearing supplier I was using at the time. Heard impressive stories about its use on ally boats, but had mixed results when using it to stick patches over holes in my Landy roof. Possibly too much vibration? Possibly me, although the surface was cleaned well. A few large rivets and the epoxy used as a sealer worked fine.
Worked better than the oxy-welding method outlined in the workshop manual!!!
Rich.

[Tony Smith]

Has anyone (I'm thinking North America) here used "JB Weld"? I have heard it often mentioned in US car mags for everything to setting cylinder liner sleeves to glueing rust patch panels, but haven't actually seen it here in Aust.

[Bruce MacMillan]

I've used JB Weld to bond a gas line to a carburetor. The threaded bushing on the line had stripped the threads on the carb body so I used JB to secure the line. It's been three years and it is still holding strong. Once JB is set it seems heat and gas resistant.

[Snowtractor]

I use it all the time. It is an epoxy putty with a high percentage of metal powder in it. I believe it can withstand up to 600F . You can machine it and drill and tap it. I have used it to make gears on small items. Use a silicone RTV to make a mould around a broken part, carefully put in JB making sure all the cogs are filled in and working quickly. Let set and pop out voila' .
Sean

[phoenix]

Mmmm, interesting. I could probably use this on a couple of small spots on my ambulance.

Any ideas where it can be obtained from?

[Tony Smith]

There's some on E-bay AU, but it's cheaper on TradeMe.
See www.jbweld.com

[Snowtractor]

I was thinking about JB last nught and remembered my uncle used to use it to repair cylinder walls of old stationary hit-and-miss engines. They had been sitting with water in them for years and the pitting, usually on the side down, would make it impossible to make compression. So he would clean them up and put in JB and use a hard plastic piece, cut to the diameter of the bore, to shape it . When it hardened a bit he honed the cylinder. Put it back together and voila.
He didn't run them under load or very long so they didn't heat up excessively and it worked.
Another thing I have used is a polyester resin loaded with Aluminum powder. It was 2 part but you could pour it and use a vacuum bell to hell pull out the air bubbles. This made it a bit easier to cast intricate items. It had about 85% aluminum loading and retained about that much characteristic of the aluminum. Very neat stuff.
We did stress and impact testing with polyester resin and glass loading. Our results were that polyester resin had almost no strength so is was not to be used alone. Also , if you can reach the 85% loading point it would be at its maximun strength. Theoretically higher glass loading would be stronger, but the item generally does't carry enough polyester resin to wet everthing properly and hold together. I would extrapolate that anything used as a reinforcing agent in the Polyester medium would be close to peaking in strength at 85% loading. I tell you this so that if you have a lot to do, buy the items separately and mixing them would be cheaper. A fiberglass automobile kit is a polyester resin and glass fiber set. Use the resin with the metal dust off of your bench grinder and there you go.
Sean

[chris vickery]

Thought I would jump in here on this one.
The guy that does some sandblasting for me has an autobody shop. 99% of the repairs he makes now are by using some sort of panel adhesive.
He swears by it, the setup is quick, no heat and warpage and no risk of fires.
His procedure is straightforeward; he cuts out the damaged area, uses a pneumatic tool to make a flange all the way round, fits the patch and uses a few self tapping screws to secure. Once happy with the fit he simply removes the patch panel, applies the glue and re-attaches it in place. An hour later he removes the self tappers and its ready for a small skim of Bondo and viola, finished.
I have seen repairs done and it does a better job than welding in a quarter of the time.