The Framers Forum

Hi,

A possibly stupid question here; is there any reason *not* to use superglue (e.g. https://www.diy.com/departments/loctite ... 175_BQ.prd) for securing small lightweight plastic objects within a small box frame?

Cheers,

Zac

If they are your property use whatever you like ...... unless maybe you are selling them on. If they are a customer's property then it's the same as anything, if they are worth anything, financially or sentimentally, potentially in either case, or just "nice" ...... etc, then maybe not; the decision needs to be made by the customer and needs to be an informed one.


Adhesive methods, regardless of the type, can fail in three ways, it can fail itself and the surface of the object and of the mounting surface can as well, but in some cases it's a case of "so what"! They could be re-fixed. I have a set of 2012 Olympic 50p coins I framed for myself - I could easily mount a few with melinex, possibly with the help of CMC cut apertures, but thirty of the things, I siliconed them ...and I wouldn't be surprised, if, given the cost of fastening them in somehow, a customer would be fine with that too.

Offgassing

Superglue, or CA glue is not just one product where all brands and formulations have exactly the same characteristics and specifications. Manufacturing industries commonly use superglue products for assembling products where the glue bond must last the usable life of the product, which in some cases can be decades. The original producer of Superglue was probably Loctite and they have a massive range of different types of Superglue, Including moisture resistant varieties.

The limiting factor with the non specialist superglues is that they are usually hydroscopic and absorb moisture from the air, which over a period of time, will weaken the bond causing eventual failure. Locktite precision is such a product and you can usually get it from Halford's. It's even good for repair parts of cars with are exposed to all weather's and vibration.

Here is the produt description:-

https://www.loctite-consumer.co.uk/en/p ... ision.html

It should be noted that using superglue on products containing low density cellulose materials such as some fabrics, of perhaps mountboard, can cause an exothermic reaction, which in extreme cases can initiate a fire. Superglue is even used in some survive kits, because it is useful for starting fires.

That's brilliant, very informative, thank you all.

So to follow up, what type of adhesive would you consider for mounting small plastic figures to mountboard. Think Lego figures (but they're not), the contract area for bonding is extremely small, like 1mm.

Why can’t they be fastened in with melinex straps?
Can you post a photo?

Semi rigid, or flexible plastics are not suitable for bonding with superglue. In the past, I have often tied some items in place using 5 amp fusewire, sometimes it's possible to conceal the fusewire. 5 amp fusewire is not always visually obvious, but you would need to assess how obvious it would be according your actual usage. What sort of surface are these figure standing on, if it can be a fine fabric with a not to thick fluffy surface, The fusewire can sometimes be made to disappear into a fluffy surface.

I've got some green felt and have used this quite sucessfuly to hide 5 amp fusewire fixings, on several occasions. Sometimes you need to employ a bit of lateral thinking! I'm not really sure what else to suggest.

Here's a pic, they're 1/87 scale figures, so about 20mm high, the frame size is about 50mm x 40mm.



They're supplied stuck to extremely sticky modeling pads, but can occasionally fall over, and there are cases where I'd like to stick them directly to coloured matboard, or cut downs spacers.

The problem is that I can only attach them by the soles of their feet, which is an extremely small area, that's why I was thinking of using the Loctite Superglue Gel

Maybe it will work, you’d have to test it on one, or something made from same stuff.

Hot melt glue might work, or acrylic gel medium. You can get really sticky pads for dashcams etc too, but this is such a small area.

If you didn’t require space and a mirror behind them, a tiny melinex strap around each leg and through the back mount would work.

If I remember rightly, lego bricks are made out of ABS (Acylidiene butildene sytrene), there is a solvent which you can use to Stick ABS to ABS, it's called MEK (Methyl ethyl keytone). If you can stick it down to a surface which is made of ABS, that could be a possible solution.

Mind you it's chemical welding. I'm not sure that I would call that a reversible archival process. Sounds a little risky to me!

Insert pins into the soles of the feet ? In fact if you could find threaded rod small enough diameter you wouldn't need glue at all.

Yes, but whatabout protecting the originality of the figures, by inserting those holes into the feet, those holes were not an original feature of the figure and hence the figure is now no longer in the original condition which collectors prefer, therefore it could be argued as comprising the figure's future value to present owner or another collector.

I think I'll have a play around, these aren't Archive quality figures so I'm not worried about permanent fixing.

Thanks for the ideas though, much appreciated.