I wish you would have tested E6000 because I use it for a lot of things. Since it is basically the same thing as plastic model glue (at least it feels and smells the same), it works well for plastics. My guess is that is would be a good compromise between the two types you've shown. Probably stronger than the silicone/VHB/hotglue, but it is certainly not as strong as superglue or 2-part glues.
For PLA (and to some extend also PETG), "UHU Hartkunststoff" works very well. It dissolves part of the material and kinda welds them together at the joint. From its usage it works just like normal glue, so its easy to use as well.
@@PTEC3D Weldon acrylic glue works well. Especially the thicker stuff if you need some gap fill. MEK and DCM are the solvents, so it does the same type of bonding. (But do it in a well ventilated area.)
Love the mini Thomas as a narrator. Great idea and thanks for taking this much effort in post processing. Your videos, same as CNC kitchen, are always very thoroughly explained and because of that, stay relevant years after filming, even if some technologies march on.
@@slicedpage the statistical residuals would be huge (difference between measurements and estimated value) as in 9/10 of a Sanlander. Royalty residuals would be 🥜, but they seem to live in the same household anyway, so it wouldn't change much in the household income. And yes, I answer rhetorical questions.
Thanks for doing all this work for us. I've been liking JB Weld's light activated cyanoacrylate adhesive. The light source with the LED on the dispenser makes it easy to control the run out. I've also finally started using the 3D Gloop! I bought a while ago and never really used. So long as you clamp the part it work amazingly well (the PLA breaks first). VHB is a pressure-sensitive adhesive, so really needs to be clamped to get the best results. I still won't work well under shear though.
I liked your spin on fixing a messed up recording. That worked well. Invest in a a green screen and that'll make your production look so much smoother (no white outline on your inset overlay)
There are LSE primers available for low surface energy materials like PP, PE, even teflon apparently. It's supposed to increase bonding on these materials. I used it to glue magnets into PETG using "rubber reinforced" superglue. It was called "3770 primer". Found it on eBay. Don't know how much impact it makes, and I don't know if printed plastic is considered LSE.
CA fillers impact strength. You can use accelerators - CA is acid inhibited and thus base accelerated. It's not about air but moisture. When you press parts you make surface moisture to glue volume ratio in favor of polymerization /diluting acid/. Sand, saw dust etc carries moisture. Baking soda rises Ph. You should not mistake glue with filler :) You can buy special spray accelerators that do wonders with CA with little impact to strength :)
The spray accelerators heat up the contact areas really well, and would add to the bond strength, although sometimes it seems to add air bubbles to the joint. And I almost don't recommend it to casuals because of how friking hot it gets, and will burn the skin, had a scar for a decade on the inside of a finger from some accelerated glue. It works great on helping the thicker CA set, without overheating.
@@Christian-cz9bu Speed actually depends on accelerator. Safety and know how applies to CA of course. Overheat can cause burns and nasty vapor release. Well coupled CA and kicker is powerful tool.
I just used some JBweld 2 part epoxy for plastic on some models I needed to glue the arms and legs onto. I knew I didn't want to use super glue because it can't gap fill and it just runs all over my fingers. Awesome video!
I bought some ‘acrylic plastics cement’ seems to bond really well to PLA even though it’s meant for PETG It supposedly fuses the plastics together by surface softening
3DGloop looks really good for joining parts with. It is, of course, a specific product for a specific plastic. Haven't tried it myself yet but it looks very interesting. But they do have PLA, PET and ABS gloop.
A trick with getting CA to fill gaps is to use the thicker stuff (specialty brands are available in a range of viscosities) and spray it with some accelerator to cure it instantly. Woodworkers often do this to fill cracks or small knot holes; you can build up a few layers much faster than waiting for epoxy to cure. The accelerator eliminates the need for tight-fitting seams normally required.
I do mainly structural prints in PLA+ and have been using super glue gel from Harbor Freight. I have tried most of the major brands available here in the US but the HF bonds better (failure of print material before the adhesive) and is cheap. (3.99 US for 10 tubes). Their gel is perfect for what I do as it is thinner than most gels but thick enough to fill gaps and inconsistencies when needed. The "mini me" save on the video did a good job of saving the video without being too corny.
Can you believe it man? The G+ community years ago capped out around 500k or so members, and I am pretty sure at least half of them were bots. You...singularly...have surpassed that by a significant margin. Can't wait to see 500k :)
I use hot glue, but I make matching pockets with a negative profile at the places I want to connect. Never had any problem with that, but the contact area need a minimum size to do this.
If the JB Weld is still soft to scratch, you either didn't use enough hardener, or you didnt wait long enough. You need at least 1:1 ratio with JB weld, but I find that a bit more hardener than steel is best. (The a bit more white than black). Especially with JB weld that has been opened before and not used all in 1 go I will skew closer to 60/40 mix of hardener to steel on old JB weld, and 55/45 on new or fresh. Once it sits up, it will be hard as a damn rock. I've literally had cast aluminum fracture before a JB Weld joint failed. Especially if you do good surface prep. Need to strip any oil off, and rough up the surface as much as possible.
Excellent video - I'm glad to see my use of a meme adhesive is not in vain! 😂 I had to use JB Weld to fasten some PETG parts together and it does great. I did notice tackiness/softness as well initially, though I thought that might be due to the fact the tubes were several years old since I opened them and figured the activator might have aged. Eventually, it hardened more.
I somehow found out that Tamiya extra thin cement also works for PLA. I assumed it wouldn't because PLA isn't a standard plastic, but it slightly dissolves the surface and if you rub the two parts together the dissolved surfaces mix together and it acts as a weld. It's very quick setting too, it's basically a chemical that evaporates very quickly.
For big gaps, hot glue the piece, then break it apart where the glue joins the piece, then use superglue to stick the hot glue back to the piece again (on both ends). That works well for me. :)
You must have read my mind, I went looking for glue today to stick together my first real serious project. Local shops didn’t have 2-part epoxy. Thanks.
You missed my favorite "glue." I nearly always friction weld parts together using a Dremel. Resin prints, it appears that super glue is stronger than the resin itself in my experience.
Of course this video releases hours after i went to buy some glue. I got Uhu Endfest, so i guess I'm good. Thanks for this comparison, it's a question I've been wondering about for some time.
On the off chance you decide to reattempt this with some viewer suggestions for glues, mind trying out E6000? It's a fairly common glue out there and one that is suggested for a ton of 3d print gluing.
It took me years to realize that CA-glue usually doesn't last very long once opened. Beware if you use small amounts! Check if it hardens in the usual time span, else get new ☹️
Because water vapor causes CA to harden, you can extend the storage life by putting the bottle into a zip-top bag, evacuating as much air as possible, and then sticking it into a freezer. The cold temps in the freezer don't do much but because freezers are a low humidity environment, that keeps the CA from hardening.
I like hot glue, especially if there is a possibility of me wanting to undo it, for tight fit crazy glue, or Weldon 4 works ok with pet-g, epoxy too much mess most of the time
Cheers hope you're feeling well, that has been interesting and saved me a lot of experimenting, thank you for the work that went into the test. I have also thought about a construction adhesive (Liquid Nails here in Australia) and also some of the adhesives like Airfix glue, contact cement, and some unknown Brand XYZZY (i.e. I have no idea the brand it's in unknown characters) that I haven't really had a chance yet to try. If I get time in the next few weeks I'll post to Twitter or something. My tests aren't quite as sophisticated (actually I don' have tests per se...) so ... wish me luck. Also - using short pieces of filament chucked in a dremel tool and friction welding, I have done this and think it's better than many adhesives but can get quite ugly and need filing and sanding afterwards. I'll see if I have pictures of a case I tacked together using friction welding and liked it so much I just left it like that. And also also - bicarb and superglue works extremely well but is just as messy as the superglue filler, actually it looks the same but bicarb is heaps cheaper...
doing my research I found pla gloop was great but expensive the best one you a missing in your review is a pipe-fitting glue it is called Hunter solvent cement sc954 the tests of the things you are testing are rubbish hope you can get it in Germany I am in the UK
I wonder how welding with a 3D printing pen holds up to these adhesives. I would estimate that it is somewhere between super glue and hot glue for the tensile test.
Are you using a high temperature (~200C) or a low temp (~130C) hot glue? I've found the former works considerably better. Also there are special hot glues designed for plastics, and unsurprisingly they work a lot better too.
For filament prints, a 3d printing pen could be used - you'd be extruding the same material as the print, essentially manually adding a layer in between the parts being joined.
@@joeking433 I've used it to fill some gaps in seams between parts, but they were already glued with cyanoacrylate. Not sure about the overall strength of using the printing pen alone. If you want minimal gaps, you could only really join small contact areas this way - you've got to lay down all the filament before pressing the parts together. Otherwise if you can hold the parts a little distance apart you could squirt the molten plastic in between to give a large surface area. Overall it seems that epoxy would be a more effective and less problematic approach.
@@spagamoto It seems even water causes a reaction but sodium bicarbonate causes an exothermic reaction that boils off the natural water to cure instantly with a puff of heat and CO². The increased surface area of any granules helps the traditional water reaction go faster too.
To expand on methods to stick parts together, two topics I'd like to hear about are: creating interlocking features that jam together robustly. And techniques for welding parts together with heat, either by heating one or both surfaces, or by applying hot filler material from say a 3d filament "pen", like MIG welding steel. Oh I guess there's also friction welding.
once you include welding type bonds it becomes hard to argue against acetone welding on ABS there are also modelmaking glues that also work that way. dissolve the surface so that the two plastic parts literally become one and then harden again by evaporating the solvent. usability depends on the type of plastic though....
I actually repair broken prints with a 3d pen and it's very tricky to do. You need to touch/heat both surfaces before you extrude the filter material. Or else it won't transfer enough heat to actually melt everything together. But if you manage to get it done, you end up with sanding a perfekt bond.
Someone did a detailed video on this and found that the rubber infused Loctite Ultra Gel Control Super Glue was by far the best for PLA. I bought some, but it hardened in the container in the many months long delay before I even opened and tried to use it! I've had good luck on PLA parts with minimal gaps using water-thin CA which wicks into the joint.
@@johnpeters4214 I also get the small 2g tubes in both gel and “regular”. I love never having to deal with a bottle going hard or all of that buildup at the tip that happens over time
@@UNVIRUSLETALE Yes. Store in fridge but let it reach room temperature before using it, otherwise air moisture might dew inside the tube, which means it'll polymerize faster instead of slower
I've gone through a lot of adhesives and solvents trying to find what works for me with various materials and uses. For me, CA (esp. Loctite Ultra gel) works a treat with PLA and adequately with most PETGs. Epoxy (yay JB weld) is very solid if not too thinly applied with just about everything. If I really need strength, it's solvents e.g. Weld-on 3 or 4 (I like 4 for PETG). When working with TPU, which admittedly I haven't done a lot, I've found Loctite 406 (with or without primer) to be almost as good as a solvent (being a CA, also works with PLA and PETG). For a solvent, I used DMF once and it welded TPU great (I hear THF also works but I haven't tested it). I mostly stick (ha!) with 406 since it's more versatile for me.
I have been using Weld-on 3 for PLA and it's fantastic. I also have some 3DGloop but unused. I have a funny feeling the secret ingredient is Methylene Chloride. (well ventilated!)
Great video, any chance you could do TPU ? I found a few videos about it but it's mostly US testers and we can't really find the same glues in europe. Thanks :)
Pro tip.... that "gap filler" for the superglue. It's just baking soda. It will dry any CA glue "superglue" on contact and give it structure. They actually use this technique to fill large holes in helicopter blades. It can fill seriously large holes this way. Just add CA glue and sprinkle the baking soda on then rub/ blow it off. It seriously comes in handy.
Really intresting results. I work in automotive and we use vhb everywhere. I engineered some bodyside rub strips for a car manufacturer I think (would need to check) they used a pc/abs substrate injection mouldings with vhb to attach to a painted door. I tested them in an environmental chamber for over a week with no issues I could have picked a car up with them. I guess because of the large surface area. Took a good 40 minutes to get them off again the stuff is a nightmare to remove used a rubber wheel on a drill.
Awesome video! It's so cool to dive into something so deep that doesn't seem all that difficult. Personally I use PVC glue. It's mostly used for bonding pvc rain pipes and in my experience it works well on 3D prints. Also it is really cheap and you're getting a good amount for the price. Keep up the good work Tom!
IDK about you, but my glue gun and other industrial glue guns function at 200c. Techbond makes tons of different stick blends. Half of them are true high temp that don't even begin to soften at ambient temperatures. Their highest temp stick for cardboard is very stiff, almost like a filament plastic.
I really like E6000/GOOP in general, and it works really well with PETG. They're similar to the FixAll you used. They stay rubbery. And because they are more cohesive than adhesive, they're easy to remove with a little stretching.
I can confirm Krazy Glue works well on Overture silk PLA. I printed an air raid siren rotor and glued the parts together, and it survived 12,000RPM perfectly fine. I've tried to pull the parts apart, and couldn't.
Does anyone's 3d Printer Actually Work for them instead of the other way around. I have a real Question. All I hear and see are people who can't make their 3D Printers work, or get good parts off the machine. My experience is, hours and hours worth of trouble shooting, Tweaking, Adjusting, Etc... to get one Semi-Okay part. Then when we try to make a 2nd one, it doesn't work like the last one and the trouble shooting, Tweaking and Adjusting Starts all over again. Every time there's a new Problem. No plate Sticking Parts peeling apart Parts Warping Run out Sensors Failing Nozzle Problems Extruder Problems Filament Problems Machine just stops half way through the part Filament Snapping. Bowden Tube Problems A Combination of all the above. etc. Every Print it's something different. The only consistency is there will always be a different problem. How Much do you need to spend on one of these machines until you get one that actually works reliably? And since it take the better part of a day to make even one small part (If it works and makes it all the way through), Is there anyone who can actually make any money with these things? or do they work 24hr a day for free? It's like owning a boat. it seems like a great idea until you have to store it, clean it, maintain it, repair it, tow it, etc... so you just stop using it after a while?
I like and now only use Weldon 16 for PLA, hands down the best but probably not the best stuff for you. CA and epoxy are good too if surface prep is good.
honestly dont know why you would use anything other than weld on #16 on PLA. Easy application, no mixing, cures in a couple of minutes and makes a stronger bond than CA glue without having to use an activator or filling agent
Great series of tests Thom. A small note -- JBWeld is an epoxy, but a heavily steel-reinforced one. It is perhaps not the best representative for "generic" two-part epoxies. In the UK there's Araldite, globally 3M Scotch-Weld, Loctite (but those are usually more industrial use) and I'm sure there's a fairly generic one in Germany too.
what's a good alternative for "less reinforced" epoxy? when i used JB weld, i figured it'd be fine to let it harden and sand way the blobs on the outside. i ended up having to take a full palm sander to it to even get it down a bit.
I prefer to use my handheld printer pen and repair with the same filament I printed with. I’m sure in a pinch you could extrude with your hotend right onto the break and quickly squeeze the parts together. Or even use your desolder gun and melt filament into the part. Can you test that also?
There's two more tests your really need to do to see the differences between the different glues: pulling directly against the glue surface, and dropping things from a moderate height. I say this because CA glue is SO strong for forces that are pulling on the joint - but it's also brittle and tends to shatter when subjected to shearing forces. So CA glue is fine for most things, until you drop it. Also: I love that you ran up against the challenges of ADR and just nerped out of it. :D
Solvents, although not technically glues, deserve featuring. As you stated, PLA can be difficult to glue. Weld-on 3 or 4 chemicals bond PLA extremely well, almost as good as printer, and in some temperature cases, better.
For PLA, acrylic glue (solvent based cement for glueing plexiglas/PMMA) works well - it seems the solvent used for PMMA/acrylic also dissolves PLA, and creates a strong weld bond. This is a one-component glue that's sold in the hardware store as a squeeze tube, so it's a bit less hassle than 2-component glues.
It is odd that the ‘None’ control performed better than the adhesives, considering that some of the tests broke at the plastic rather than the bond line. I wonder it VampCaff’s comment about the bonding agent affecting the plastic is a cause or if there are other factors involved? Since I print functional parts, bond or plastic degradation over time would be an important consideration in the choice of adhesives. Thanks for the work, Tom, appreciate it.
I use ABS slurry (ABS dissolved in Acetone) as an adhesive for PLA. I think it works really well and would be interested in how it holds up to comparative testing in future videos.
Hi Tom. I work with gluing up 3D prints almost daily. I'd like to mention that CA glues, I have found have very useful variants. There are Thin, Medium, and Thick variations, as well as some which are rubber toughened. I typically use accelerators with them, but not always. Accelerators can cause glues to boil and bubble in some situations causing aerated volume increase. I'm eager to see how it works with PETG. My favorite CA so far is Starbond. They have a great variety, and I keep all four I mentioned at the ready.
super glue is no good. it turns pla brittle and turns pla and petg white where the surfaces are bonded. sometimes it happens right away but i have pieces that turned white at the joint after more than a year.
That is 100% the issue with CA glues.. works good for a while... But it will fail... I have projects "welded" with "Weldon / Psigrip 16" that are over 5 years old and are still holding strong.
My go-to "glue" for 3D prints is "Plastruct Bondene" plastic cement. You have to use the "Bondene" variety of Plastruct cement...the regular Plastruct cement is not as versatile. It solvent welds the stuff together. You will sooner tear the printed piece apart at the layer lines than at the glue joint. It works for PLA, ABS, PETG and certainly more. Keep in mind that the stuff dries extremely quickly, so, make sure you put the cap back onto the bottle right away. Super glue (cyanoacrylate) works decently on 3D prints, hot glue guns work great for certain applications and even various thermal welding techniques can work just fine. But the cleanest and strongest joint will be achieved with a solvent welding cement (especially if combined with a joint design that allows the parts to physically interlock).
Another big plus with hot-glue is that you can effortlessly break the bond with a quick spray of denatured alcohol (Brennsprit). I use this all the time when prototyping. I learned this valuable trick from Ben-"hotglue, my only friend."-Heck.
@@PTEC3D Have you tried it? It works so well, it's as if hot-glue has a shutdown button. If the manufacturers were smart they would pretend this to be a new feature and sell "release-agent" with the glue sticks, a bit like the reverse of UV-curing.
Very useful. For me, a big factor is also colour. Yeah, JB Weld's awesome 5600 pound breaking strength is fantastic, but the glue is ugly as f*** if you're not painting over it. The transparent hot glue seemed like the most all-round useful solution for non strength joins.
UV resin and UV glue require UV flashlight to reach enough intensity for the join to cure to any depth. Or leave in sun for few hours. The glue/resin should be clear so it conducts UV light deeper. Dark filament and opaque resin parts do not do as well as light or translucent. UV glue is fast, apply, align and zap. 2-part epoxy is strong and cures everywhere, but parts slide easily around when trying to press them together. -> Epoxy + UV glue to hold the parts together during cure 😉
