Metal and Wood Glue Choices

Among the many dozens of enquiries which we receive every week, there are generally several dealing with gluing metal to wood. Gluing metal to wood may appear to be an odd application, but upon our laboratory tables, the visitor would always find these materials.

Therefore, how should you glue these oldest of materials together? Well, depending on the application, in other words, depending on what is being made, there are different glues for different types of jobs.

We have many customers who make craft items, for example, cigar boxes, jewellery boxes and the like. In these applications, the strength of the bond is low and will not be exposed to water, therefore in these applications, a superglue will do the job. Our CA01 superglue is the best grade, nice and thick, so it won’t flow all over the place. For speed, the CA01 can be used with A113, a high speed non-yellowing activator.

What about parts which will be exposed to wear and tear, or moisture? We have a range of customers who make musical instruments and within this sector, gluing brass parts such as finger keys and/or the lip plate to the wooden instrument body, requires a different type of glue. For these jobs, and other jobs where high strength is used, we normally suggest a two pack epoxy glue.

We supply a range of epoxy glues, they can glue a diverse range of materials, ensuring tough bonds with high strength. Epoxies can be sanded and even painted.

What differentiates our general purpose epoxies is their thickness and cure time. Some epoxies are liquid, ideal for applications where the joint thickness is exceptionally small. Using these liquid epoxies, it is possible to fill small gaps, as low as 0.1 mm in fact! The selection of the correct cure time, allows manufacturers, particularly the serial manufacturer , to optomise the gluing process to suit the overall production process. This ensures that the working time and the clamping time meet the overall production process times.

In addition, in some sectors, it is a benefit the epoxy glue has the same colour as the surrounding materials. Our epoxies can be coloured, with everything from sawdust down to steel powder. The epoxies are truly multifunctional.

But don’t take my word for it, contact our technical services department, and we will be pleased to tell you about the in’s and out’s of epoxy and indeed all aspects of gluing metal to wood.

The Glue Guru