Hey all, happy holidays. While browsing around here, I've noticed the numerous different adhesives used of different parts of a ship by different people, but, I haven't noticed too many people explaining their choice of glue. So I want to know from you guys, what adhesives work best where? Particularly, what adhesives don't work well where. Thanks for any answers!
CA is very good for bonding your fingers together E6000 seems to work very well for sticking shit to fiberglass and wood hulls. Epoxy is very good for saturating fiberglass cloth for fiberglass work. Contact Cement is very good for sheeting balsa to a hull. JB Weld is good for temporarily patching the leak in the weld of your muffler.
CA glue is strong and fast-curing, but brittle. Depending on the thickness, it can be used for emergent pond-side repairs, sealing air leaks, or tacking parts in place while stronger glues set. Epoxy is extremely strong, fairly stiff, and quite tough. I use it for major structural joints (for its toughness), hull waterproofing (it soaks delightfully into wood), electronics waterproofing (it pours very nicely) and filling in spaces (it pours very nicely). Oh yeah, it can also be used with fiberglass stuff. Eww. I like epoxy for wooden hulls because, if you put in the effort, it is very effective at preserving your very nice woodwork. A lot of people only apply one coat, but I have found that two coats of epoxy with a little sanding in between results in much more effective waterproofing and a nicer finish. Also don't pour too much epoxy at a time, it is an exothermic hardening reaction, so an excessive pour will crack the epoxy or damage the wood. E-6000 is a very flexible adhesive. I mostly use it for attaching superstructure bits topside. The flexibility and strength means that parts are less likely to get blown off. The downside is this stuff likes to form strings, that can drape across the hull and ruin your finish. Contact Cement can bond very quickly and strongly when set up right. I usually see the brush-on kind used to attach balsa to hulls, and the spray-on kind used to attach silkspan to balsa. The former is great because it sticks the moment the two parts make contact, so you can just lay down your balsa and press it in place, and it stays. The latter is nice because it's less effort than brushing on nitrate dope, but I have had issues with the silkspan de-laminating from the wood, causing the wood to fall off the boat. YMMV. I don't know about classic JB Weld, but the same company makes a clay-like epoxy putty that is fantastic for shaping. I have used it to fill in gaps around propshafts, form skegs, repair bows, and other tasks that require high-strength molding. It can be sanded, so you can blend your structures into the hull quite nicely. The only downside is that it likes to stick to your fingers, so wear gloves. Don't forget about your plastic adhesives! ABS Slurry is a mixture of acetone and ABS scraps that forms a nice thick paste. It is great for permanently welding two ABS parts together, or forming a high-strength bond between a 3d-printed part and some other piece. I use it to attach the non-3d-printed parts to my 3d-printed cannons. Acetone Vapor Bath is a treatment for 3d-printed parts. It partially dissolves the outside layers of a part, smoothing them together into a stronger whole. This improves the finish (at a minor loss of detail), forms a watertight/airtight seal across the surface, and significantly improves strength. My early 3d-printed cannons work fine without this treatment, but I now treat all my cannons and superstructure parts for that extra margin of safety.
