Sticking foamies together

[Doug Ireland]

Gents,

Im just about at my wits end after wasting 30 quid on cyano's and all I've managed to do is stick my fingers together and disolve the fabric of my "Divo" biplane. What am I doing wrong... the bottles of glue say they are "foam safe" but it doesn't seem to be the case. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Tim Mackey]

maybe using too much...this sometimes causes probs, as does using certain "kicker" are you using kicker?

PS get my email tonight?

[Doug Ireland]

Thanks for the reply Tim, the adhesives I'm using  say they are "foam safe" and Ive tried either spotting the glue or runnig a bead, neither seem to make any difference. As regards "kicker"; is this an accellerant or a catalyst as there is a big difference?

will check pm shortly.

[Tim Mackey]

Accelerant - and some are NOT foam friendly .

I always find the ZAP range ( Pacer I think ) pretty reliable, including foam versions.

[Doug Ireland]

These ones are made by Bob Smith Industries from over the pond. And were used "as is", if it says its foam friendly then youl'd expect it to work. Or am I being too simplistic! Is there a difference between foam and Depron?

[Former Member]

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[Tim Mackey]

I am currently using the bob smith one myself on the depron triplane build. I found that if you use it very sparingly, and also the kicker very sparingly it is fine, otherwise, yes it does start to eat into the depron skin.

[StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives]

The problem is that many activators/accelerators/kickers for cyanoacrylate adhesives are not safe on foam, many claim to be safe on foam but are not

Companies (who arent manufacturers of adhesives) often just buy in a cheapo industrial activator, dollop a bit on  foam and when it doesnt melt it ( as the solvents are safe on foam ) ,  they stick `foam safe `  on the label.....

The problem is that 99.9% of then use an active ingredient that does melt foam in use with a cyano, it also causes great exothemic reaction when curing , so both the heat and the chemical contents will melt foam ( generaly inside the bondline )

This is why StarLoc / FiveStar adhesives make 3 activators , the std non whitening one  that is not for use on foam, the superfast `Faster Blaster` and the foam safe activator,

both the fasterblaster and the foamsafe kicker dont melt foam when liquid but the only safe one to use with a cyano on foam is the foamsafe one due to different active ingredient

Another problem is.. if the glue gets too hot as it sets,...the glue will dissolve more foam the hotter it gets... making the `foam safe` cyano `not so foam safe` if the wrong activator is used

(its like dissolving sugar in water, the hotter it gets the more you can dissolve in to a solution and the faster it dissolves)

[Doug Ireland]

Just tried the old glue gun but proved to be too hot! So now have resorted to PVA. Slow, but it looks like it does the trick.

[Tim Mackey]

If I dont use cyano, and am happy to wait, then PU ( EG: gorilla glue ) is my favourite, and also of course UHU por, which I find excellent on all foam.

[Chris Dickens]

I have found that DeLuxe 'foam to foam' from a good model shop is better than UHU por but it can take about half an hour to set enough to handle.

I have used a hot glue gun but you do have to be careful, the glue should not be hot enough to melt the depron but the metal tip of the gun certainly will be.

[Former Member]

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