Any alternatives?

[ronnie]

Just wondering if there are any adhesives to use that can be purchased at say Home Depot, or Loews, or even an auto parts store?



Just looking to save time for ordering it online.

BTW tried fabric glue.......came right off.
Crazy glue is just CRAZY!
Looking to have a very strong bond, but a good alternative to
using the ones mentioned in this section that need to be ordered online.

Any suggestions would be great,

-Ronnie

[ronnie]

I just read a thread below mine, and thought the company "Great Planes" was only for online ordering too, and so I called my local RC shop down the road and asked if they had the 30 minute epoxy by Great Planes and vwalla they have it...!

Thanks guys for the input on the threads.

[Ray (Flock Man)]

You will never get a very strong bond with a single adhesive. You could get a strong bond with a combination of adhesives and solvents and even that will come off if you try to take it off.

Trust me I’ve bought surgical adhesives to marine adhesives and it’s a running challenge I have going with many adhesive companies. All you can hope for is a nice tight bond from expensive adhesives.
Will it take a beating? Yes, but within reason. Excessive heat mixed with abrasion could break the bond.

An over the counter glue that may work for you is Gorilla Glue or Elmers Ultimate. It has to be applied very thin and in dry conditions to prevent the foaming action. A small amount of MEK solvent added to the mix may help prevent the foaming action. If you’re in Texas or Arizona it may not be a problem, but somewhere like Florida you’d better have some kind of dry heat box for curing.
It’s all the nature of dealing with a greasy plastic like soft PVC. Many adhesives stick to PVC, but they either dry to quickly, or they won’t stick to Nylon Flock fibers. Nylon is then the other challenge. It is also hard to stick to.
So it comes down to what are you looking for? If you are looking for something that holds the hair on tight and can resist some rough play and some water. Or are you looking for something that you can get off even if you tried.
Now remember, there are a million adhesives that are hard to come off, but none that are impossible. Super glue can be hard to come off, but you still can take it off. The adhesives used on many auto parts, carpets, etc. are much weaker than we believe really because we never take our new car and try to ruin it by picking or peeling stuff off. I know my son has some of the first Joes I did using a flexible water based glue and the hair is still going strong with hard play, but not in water. They have survived wet grass and damp sand. On the epoxy side his heads have survived the snow, the tub, the ocean, and the pool. I can’t say that the elastic or the clothes have survived though. One beach day was enough to dry rot vintage clothes.
So it comes back to what do you want to do with the flocked head. Any 20+ minute epoxy would work fine unless you’re going to pick at it to test the bond which will fail every time.
Now I could take some PVC or vinyl adhesive and coat the head and it’ll bond awesome, but then you would have to roughen up that coat and apply solvent based epoxy to hold the flock to the primer coat and this will give you a strong bond. This could work well for a collector who does a head or two here and there, but it just would be too time consuming for larger scale use ( unless you charged $25 per head) 30 minutes each head could be justified.
Then you also must consider cure time. 99% of the heads I ship back are still in cure mode. Yes they are dry and can be handled, but the full cure may not be for a few more days after the client receives his heads back. The full cure time depends on what type of head it is. A vintage head may cure much faster than a newer head. Even at full cure there is a chance the bond could weaken because of the greasy nature of some heads. Something that comes to mind is a piggy bank my son had that was full of coins. For some reason (I assume the coins) the plastic started to liquefy. At first I thought he had spilled something on it and I wiped it clean. Later it was wet looking again and in the end turned to mush!
Plastics are a strange thing to work with and for me I’m working with 3 plastics (epoxy or polyurethane {the glue}, soft PVC or some sort of urethane {the heads}, and the nylon fibers).
In the long run it’s a lot to think about and consider for what is seemingly a small task (gluing fake hair on a toy). At this point I have over 3000 web links on glue studies and adhesive companies and maybe about the same amount of hours or more in research… not to mention all the heads I’ve sent out for testing to various companies that are never to return in one piece. Then a few thousand bucks in hit or miss testing from visits to places like home depot. I have a nice batch of various adhesives which come in handy when fixing things around the house…lol! Overall, I’ve found that no glue is the all time best, but many times multiple adhesives do a better job (as in using one as a primer and another as the adhesive). 99% of the glue up strength is in the surface preparation. The rule is clean, dry, slightly roughened surface.

[ronnie]

Thanks Ray,
at the moment I just did two modern heads one is a Modern Action man.

I used Great Planes 30 minute 2 part .....
I like how it goes on and seems to "grab" as I heard in another thread ( I think and hope LOL this grabbed)

Waiting for it to cure or harden, around 8 hours it says.
at that time I will do my rub the index finger test (mini noogy LOL)

If it holds I'll post pictures.

BTW I did not use an electrostatic special machine....
Just kinda of a salt shaker technique I am trying using a plastic ketchup / mustard squeeze bottle.

Not as cool as your work Ray or anyone who is using the pro set up,
but fun to try out, and get a cool looking figure in the end....well that is if I mixed right, and if it sticks properly.

I will definitely keep all you said in mind and thanks for the Gorilla glue and Elmer's pro tip.

Hopefully will post pictures soon for everyone to check out.

-Ronnie