Glueing Polypropylene

[John G]

Are there any adhesives that glue polypropylene and polyethylene?

Most (all?) of the plastic glues I've seen exclude PP and PE. Is it not possible to properly glue these?

I've been trying to make a jig out of a cheap PE tub I bought. So I cut the tub up and want to glue different bits and pieces to it. But none of the glues adhere.

Since it is thermoplastic, is my best bet to melt it? Or use physical fasteners? Or is there a glue that does work?

[Harry72]

Buy some glue that they use to glue surrounds to speaker cones(polyproplene), Soundman may know a bit about this PM him, wouldnt suprise me if he's done some re-coning on PA gear before.

[Hagrid]

John

We did a uni project last year with pp with the main reason that it could not be glued.
Still some of the kids did try and glue it and some of them did have success until the product was flexed a few times.
Me i had good success with using tags and then welding with the soldering iron.
Ended up making a fortuine cookie server.

[simon c]

I did a google and found these sites and also a mention to using adhesive tape:
http://www.3m.com/us/mfg_industrial/indtape/bumpon/jhtml/t_index.jhtml
http://miniatures.de/html/int/pattex-PSA12-blitz-plastik-fluessig.html

[soundman]

I don't know what they glue surrounds on to poly bass drivers with, but the edges of the cones seem to have some sort of treatment.

Polyprop' is one of "those" plastics. The things that make it a good material can make it a pain in the kneck.

Velcro have recently released a special grade of adhesive available on the back of their product that is specificaly designed for "those" plastics because the normal formulars don't hold.

ROSCO the theatrical lighting people have a glue for working with theatrical filters that are polyester based it might work.

mechanical fasteners or heat seem to be the fasteners of choice.

I spoke to a bloke that laminated polyprop (and other things) to wood with no glue, just heated the surface up till it was tacky & slaped em together under very high vacume. (vacume high enough to suck thru ply)

I saw a product where they had embedded a "cloth" type stuff into the edge of one of "those" plastics with heat so that adhesives could be used.
Have you tried superglue.

;) :eek: :D Thaught comes.
Clipsal have a extreem duty conduit to replace metal, Its made of one of "those" plastics & there is a glue for it.

The problem with "those" plastics is that they are resistant to many solvents. This makes solvent gluing a real poser.

BTW if you need to glue normal conduit to black funky conduit.
Apply the appropriate glue to eash product & jam em toghther. It seems to work.

Good luck.
cheers

[kiwigeo]

Soundman is on the right track with his comments....heres what I found on the web:
Off the web


"It should be noted that some plastics such as polypropylene and polyethylene are designed to be resistant to chemicals. These plastics that are not dissolved by chemicals cannot be glued and to join them they need to be hot-air welded. PVC will glue, but in most cases a stronger joint will be achieved by hot-air welding. Plastics that can be dissolved by a chemical are generally glue able. Most engineering plastics cannot be glued with solvent adhesives, although a contact adhesive or silicone may be acceptable for your application."

[gatiep]

Contact would work to a certain extend. Silicone and hotmelt should work OK especially if the surface is grazed with a bit of sandpaper ( hard work ) or using a hacksaw blade like a drawfile. Those glues work best when they are spread over a big surface. Squeeze the glue out between the two surfaces.

Super glue seems to glue plastics OK especially when it is the cap on the superglue bottle!

The thermoplastics are best welded together by heat BUT beware the vapours that are generated are toxic, especially PVC...........have good ventilation.

[BrianR]

Plastics material properties charts report that Polyprpoylene is soluble in methyl ethyl ketone, methyl chloride, amyl acetate, toluene and chloroform to mention a few. Try softening the surfaces with solvent and clamp together.

I think polystyrene behaves the same. I have sertainly used chloroform to glue it.

[BrianR]

Looking at my spelling of Polyprpoylene. My dyslexia coming through again - getting my turds wisted again.

[echnidna]

Plastic hot air welding guns are very similar to hot air paint stripping guns and you should be able to weld pp with one.

[soundman]

Polystyrene behaves very diferently to Polyprpoylene.
Just about any solvent will melt styrene.

[bsrlee]

A glue made by/for model railway supplier Walther's - known strangely enough as 'Walther's Goo" will glue Delrin & similar slippery plastics - it is a solvent based contact or 'rubber cement'. They have a site - www.walthers.com.

[AlexS]

Check out this site
http://www.thistothat.com/

[Parrotz]

Try Scotch-Weld DP8010 by 3M...

[station-rat]

This would be the product you require http://www.pascofix.com/index.htm
Station-rat:cool:

[Pusser]

If you go to the pascofix website make sure you read the bottom of the page.

[Evan Pavlidis]

Bunnings sell a CA glue specifically for difficult to glue plasitcs. It comes with a primer which you apply to both surfaces, let it dry, then apply CA glue to one surface and hold or clamp the parts together until the glue sets. Loctite make it and it set me back ~$7 for a small tube.
Well worth it after I noticed a fellow at the WWW show flogging a similar product in the same size containers with epoxy and a very minute amount of epoxy filler in the package for over $60.

Cheers, Evan

[sumu]

This topic is always hot.

I have found two glues that hold polyolefins (PE, PP), silicone rubber and even PTFE at least up to some point.

The first one is 3M DP 8005, used on well cleaned surfaces and dosed with that 3M EPX dispenser pistol with the adhesive designated mixing nozzle. You need the dispenser and the nozzle for it, because if the mixing ratio is off even slightly, it does not even cure properly. If the cured seam is exposed to high frequency vibration, you should check it out first by testing.

The second one is Permabond POP primer used with Permabond 105 acrylate. I have used these products mostly for silicone foils and vacuum sealing rings. POP primer swells the silicone quite much, but after that it really has a hold on 105. POP primer is pretty expensive everywhere in the world. Do not breathe the fumes.

Other methods that work are melting the base plastic with soldering iron or with a small gas flame, or ultrasonic welding. Hot melts do not really work unless they are applied so hot they melt the base plastic as well.

Or mechanical fasteners, but do not overtighten them, PP and PE (and PTFE) will creep and deform.

sumu

[echnidna]

after a while they let go.