Thread: Liner adhesion

I've been doing a few tests of glueing some wood to brass shim to see which one works the best. So far I've used CA, GOOP, and various epoxies, however, all of the results seem to let me just peel the brass away from the wood with relative ease. The overall tensile and sheer strength of all of them seem good; being that I can't just pull or sheer the brass away all at once. But, if I manage to catch an edge, then the brass just seems quite easy to peel away from the wood. This isn't a huge problem, as it's unlikely anyone is going to peel the liners off from inside a set of pinned scales, but I would like some really good solid adhesion here.

Before glueing, I rough up the surface of both the wood and the brass with 100 grit sandpaper to allow for greater adhesion. The resulting surface of the wood is rather smooth though, so I'm thinking maybe I need to use something rougher.

Anyway, what adhesives do you guys use and how do you prepare the surfaces before hand? Does anyone else find the they have the same problem?

Degrease the metal surface with acetone or a water and simple detergent (ie very plain with no oils etc added) or with a commercial degreaser. There as a thread at a knife site which covered metal to wood adhesion problems, here is an archive of it http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/ar.../t-338598.html

They recommend acetone, isopropanol etc.

After degreasing you would want to use rubber gloves to prevent the oils from your skin contaminating the surface.

See also this thread glue wars two. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=337504

You could also try making small indents in the scale material to allow some epoxy to form a reservoir there.

LOL!
Have you read my posting here on my current restoration and what I'm learning? I had this exact problem with T-88 epoxy! The wood had a bow to it, and when I unclampend them, the liners (which were taped together, and 'glued to the wood') separated from the wood (as it 're-bowed').

I also noticed your observation that the separation was clean.

Bill Ellis was kind enough to 'remind me' that I should have cleaned the wood and brass with acetone and ethanol (just ethanol on the wood), after 'roughing up' the surfaces with sand paper, but just prior to gluing.

I have since 're-glued' the scale, but sadly this advice was not 'reminded' until I had already glued them

The scales have come out of the clamp and seem to be holding up, but we'll see. One thing that 'might' have made a difference was that when I 're-glued' them the second time, I mixed up the glued, then spent time applying it in the same manner as if I were applying a lather to the scales (I left peaks and swirls in the glue), and let them sit exposed to the air (~10-15 min) prior to clamping the brass liner to the wood.

BUT, like I said, we'll see.

I am expecting them to separate. Afterwhich, I'll RE-rough them up with sand paper, but this time use the acetone/ethanol clean up.

C utz

Thanks for the info guys.

I checked both the bladeforums thread and C Utz' thread. I had previously been using 70% isopropyl alcohol to clean th surface, but I guess I'll try something else as apparently (according to someone on bladeforums), this leaves a residue.

Upon further reading of the glue wars thread on bladeforums (post #38 sums it up), apparently gorilla glue came out the best for bonding wood to metal.

Don't let Bill see this!!

Hm, where did I put that monkey-glue stuff.......