UV-set glue cure, how?
Bathsheba Grossman
with UV-set glue (they look like http://www.bathsheba.com/bluestar.gif)
and I'm just going nuts trying to find a reliable way to cure the glue.
For a while I worked with Loctite Impruv, and in the summer I was able to
cure it by leaving it in sunlight for 1/2 hour to 1 hour. This works, but
it makes an awfully slow pace for a piece that has 24 or 48 glue joints.
And in the rainy season here it gets very hazy, and the sunlight is no
longer intense enough to do the job.
I heard that NOA 60 cured with less light, and I got some and tried that,
and I can't get it to cure at all! An hour in bright sunlight makes it
slightly tacky. The most intense blacklights I can get are 20W, and
neither fluorescent nor incandescent blacklights achieve any tackiness at
all within an hour. I got a fancy fluorescent designed to make coral
reefs grow in aquariums, and another that's supposed to give your iguana a
tan, and neither has any effect on this glue.
That's all the UV there is in this town, and I can't find anything on the
net that looks more likely except industrial curing systems that cost $$$.
I believe there's one on Ebay now with a "Buy It Now" price around $2700.
What is my problem? How can I get this stuff to stick? What can I use
instead, if it's actually impossible to get UV-set glue to work on a
civilian basis? What am I going to do with all these black lights? I
don't even have an iguana.
I'm really frustrated, in case you can't tell - I feel like these things
are _almost_ a great product except that I can't solve this one problem.
Ideally I'd like to be able to just zap them together - 1-minute cure or
less, I don't care if I have to wear goggles - but at this point I'd
settle for any reliable 30-minute glue that I can use year round.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I hope you'll let me know if you have any
ideas.
--
-Sheba
Bathsheba Grossman (831) 429-8224
Creative prototyping www.protoshape.com
Microsculpture microsculpture.com
Bronze sculpture bathsheba.com
Crystal Images
Sylvania 15 watt flourescent black light bulbs. With that setup Norland
says that the initial set is one minute and full cure is 20 min. That's
about my experience, although I don't really think I have to hold it for
a full minute before it will stay together. No more, anyway. I like 68
because it fill gaps and _isn't_ anaerobic, which can be very useful.
Shelf life of their stuff is only 4 months, maybe you had some old
stuff? Although I have tubes that are a couple of years old that still
seem to work fine. But my applications aren't too critical. I see the
shelf life as Norland's major drawback, especially as I've ordered glue
from them that came with dates a month or two gone already, which
doesn't seem right to me.
I also have some stuff that I got at the last GAS conference that seems
to work about the same (don't know about full cure- I just stuck it
under the lamp and went away). It's from Lorenz Studios in Lakeside CT,
860-567-4280. Hope this helps.
Regards,
Margaret
Neon John
Bathsheba Grossman wrote:
>
> Hi, I've been trying to make some glass sculptures by gluing up pieces
> with UV-set glue (they look like http://www.bathsheba.com/bluestar.gif)
> and I'm just going nuts trying to find a reliable way to cure the glue.
>
> For a while I worked with Loctite Impruv, and in the summer I was able to
> cure it by leaving it in sunlight for 1/2 hour to 1 hour. This works, but
> it makes an awfully slow pace for a piece that has 24 or 48 glue joints.
> And in the rainy season here it gets very hazy, and the sunlight is no
> longer intense enough to do the job.
Here's a note I sent to someone via private email the last time this
issue came up:
----------
>What type of u.v. glue are you using?, it should not
> > yellow. I'm working on some new proposals for laminated glass fountains
> for
> > new art museum in Nashville, so I've been looking into u.v. adhesives
> > further. have always used Loktite or Dymaxbut just got in samples from a
> > company called Tangent. I do a little fusing and slumping as well .
I think the Loctite UV adhesive really sux. My favorite is Norland
(http://www.norlandprod.com/adhesives.html). Loctite is a
UV-activated adhesive where the UV activates a hardening agent
already built in. Norland is a UV-catalyzed adhesive where the UV
actually catalyzes the hardening process. There are many
differences. First, the Norlan adhesive can be precured or
"flashed" with UV before assembly. Just enough UV to cause the
stuff to gel. After assembly, just a little more UV sets it. Very
nice when you have to hand-hold the piece until curing. The Loctite
stuff, on the other hand, doesn't start hardening until the UV flips
the catalysts' "switch" and then it cures independent of UV
intensity. With a strong UV source, you can feel the Norland stuff
"bite". And with the loctite, oxygen inhibits the activation of the
catalyst so the surface never quite cures, as you've probably
noticed. The surfaces exposed to air remain tacky. Finally, the
Loctite takes an order of magnitude more UV than the Norland. A
black light will cure Norland. A high intensity UV lamp (made by
removing the arc tube from a mercury vapor lamp and mounting it in a
reflector) will cure the Norland practically instantly. It's just
barely enough to do the Loctite. Finally, the Norland is cheaper!
---------
My high intensity UV light that I mentioned is made from a 175 watt
mercury vapor security light and a 500 watt halogen light fixture.
I stripped the ballast out of the security light and mounted it in a
paint can that I filled with transformer oil (the ballast gets very
hot in this service). I took the mercury vapor bulb and cut the
outer glass envelope off so I could gain access to the inner arc
tube. I then took a 500 watt quartz-halogen light fixture and
gutted it of everything except the reflector. I mounted the arc
tube from the mercury vapor light in the focus of the fixture in
place of the quartz-halogen lamp. I wired the lamp to the ballast.
I left the glass cover off, as it blocks UV light. That's all there
is to it.
This lamp will cure Norland in seconds even though Norland is
primarily a long wave cured adhesive. It will actually cure Loctite
Impruv in a reasonable amount of time.
Caution is required with this lamp, as it produces enough UV light
to damage your eyes in seconds. It will also burn the skin in
minutes. It takes several minutes for the lamp to warm up after
being turned on. During that period and when I'm not actually
curing adhesive, I keep the lamp face-down against some refractory
that absorbs the UV. I also wear safety glasses with a good UV
coating on them to take care of stray beams or reflections.
Finally, this light will fairly quickly bleach out the dye in your
clothes so either don't wear good clothes when using it or don't
allow the UV light to fall on your clothes.
The mercury arc tube normally operates in an insulating vacuum.
Operated in open air, it draws more current which will cause the
ballast to overheat. That is why I operate the ballast in
transformer oil inside the paint can. If you can't find transformer
oil, ordinary medical mineral oil works fine. You can get it by the
gallon at the farm supply store.
If you think you might actually build a lamp like mine, drop me a
note and I'll take some photos for you.
John
--
John De Armond
johngdDO...@bellsouth.net
http://personal.bellsouth.net/~johngd/
Cleveland, occupied TN
Glenn Woolum
> (http://www.norlandprod.com/adhesives.html). Loctite is a
> UV-activated adhesive where the UV activates a hardening agent
> already built in.
John,
I have question for you. I've had good results with Dymax as long as the
bonding area is larger than about 1/4 square inch in area. I use Dymax with
an activator because most of the items I bond are metal to opaque glass. So
the Dymax is fine until I get down to the smaller bonding surfaces like when
I bond a small dichroic drop of glass to a metal earing post with a glue pad
of 8mm diameter or less.
I believe the bonding problem on these smaller surfaces is caused by an
incomplete interaction between the adhesive and the activator. I've observed
that many of the pieces are bonded very well (so well it's difficult to
separate them even with pliers), then other pieces are so poorly bonded, I
can almost flick them apart with a finger. Other pieces are poorly bonded,
but are stuck well enough to fool me into believing they are fully bonded
(worst case, it could fall apart for the customer).
I do all the proper surface prep, abrading, cleaning before assembly, and I
don't see any difference in how I apply the activator and adhesive, so I
don't know exactly what causes the problem, but it's enough to make me look
for another adhesive to stand up to this task. E-6000 works fairly well, but
doesn't have as much strength as a 'good' Dymax bond. Do you think the
Norland would have more desirable properties for small surface area bonding?
Do you know of any 'Super' adhesive that would do the job without having
excessive open times? In summary, I need a slightly flexible, ultra strong
adhesive with very high peel and shear strength, that also has a less than 1
minute open time.
--
Regards,
Glenn Woolum
bea...@nospam.com
glass. E-6000 is my 'glue of choice' for attaching ear posts and pin backs. I
first rough up the back of the glass under where the finding will go with my
engraving pen. I've had to work very hard with a pair of pliers, to remove a
fully cured bond of a pin back to one of my pieces.
Joan
Glenn Woolum
> glass. E-6000 is my 'glue of choice' for attaching ear posts and pin
backs. I
> first rough up the back of the glass under where the finding will go with
my
> engraving pen. I've had to work very hard with a pair of pliers, to
remove a
> fully cured bond of a pin back to one of my pieces.
Joan, thanks for the reply. I am currently using E-6000 for both pin backs
and earring posts. It works well. One problem I noticed is when I try to
glue up a batch of items, the items glued-up at the end of the batch have
poor bonds (especially on earposts). I figured out that the problem was due
to the fact that the glue "puddle" I was drawing from was just beginning to
set.
Once the E-6000 is disturbed after the setting process begins, the bonding
strength suddenly disappears. Later, when I test the bond, it feels squishy
and rubbery, and will eventually fall apart. Now that I've started using it
straight from the tube, the problem has been fixed, but this slows me down
if I need to glue up 100 pairs.
I'm looking for a better solution, though I'm not sure one exists...
--
Regards,
Glenn Woolum
Rich Samsel
Unlike some responding I have enjoyed using the loctite. I use 3491 a low
viscosity (1,100) for flat joints and the 349 high viscosity (9,500) when I
need to fill gaps. I did some destruction tests on larger pieces for glass
furniture and the loctite survived the best. The high viscosity of the 349
does take more curing strength especially if you are curing a thicker bead.
With the complexity of your pieces you probably need to fill some gaps. You
can get a UV light from Ultraviolet Products in California (UVP). They have a
100W spot (2-3 inch diameter light area) for $450 new that will set the 349
enough in about 30sec, depending on distance, to release it. I have seen the
lights on ebay now and then for around $100. As to expense of glue, if you can
afford to buy a liter bottle at $250 the expense is way below the cost of
buying any of the other products in the smaller tubes. I picked up a dispenser
on ebay for about $100 (you may have to wait for one of these).
Rich
Bathsheba Grossman wrote:
--
Rich Samsel at <a href="http://www.glasslight.com"></a>