Why does Araldite epoxy take so long to dry?

[limbeh]

This is a question that I asked jackssmirkingrevenge not too long ago. With his permission, I'm putting it up so that anyone with the same problem can search and not have to ask the experts again.

Everything here is summarised:

My Araldite epoxy takes me a few days or even a week to dry for a PVC to tyre rubber (i.e. schrader) bond, even though I live in a tropical climate. For a soda bottle to tyre rubber bond, it takes even longer. Is it the norm or is there something screwed about it?


This is JSR's answer:

Araldite tends to have different properties from the marine epoxy I use for casting. For example, I find it tends to soften when heated much more than the other stuff. I'm not far from the equator myself, once in summer I had left a wooden frame glued with araldite and filled with marine epoxy in the sun to set quicker. When I came back, the Araldite had literally given way with the heat and I was left with a collection of wooden bits in a puddle of hard epoxy. In this case with temperature you can have too much of a good thing. In any case, Araldite never seems to achieve that glass-like finish that marine epoxy does. For starters, getting the exact right proportions when mixing requires some measure of practice, and thorough mixing before applying is always necessary.

Rubber is a hard material to glue, I usually incorporate a physical fastening such as a bolt and washer to make sure it stays in place - what exactly is the sort of join you're trying to achieve?

to the strength of epoxy joints, I normally use Araldite to hold moulds together, with the real strength coming from marine epoxy casting. That said, as long as the surfaces are correctly prepared and there isn't too much of a glue gap between them, it should be at least as strong as normal solvent welding.

I get my schraders from bike tyres too, please look up http://www.spudfiles.com/forums/how-do- ... e-to-a-pla stic-bottle-t7456.html


For the mods, I hope reposting PM convos up is ok here. No intentions of being a post whore or attention seeker, just hoping to try to help out.

Thanks

[CasinoVanart]

Nice job Limbeh. How did you go with your acrylic piston?

[limbeh]

Nice job Limbeh. How did you go with your acrylic piston?

Hehe, still making the thing. I'm doing things at a really slow pace because of studies, competitive swimming (I'm in my school's swim team) and really hostile environment.

I haven't even made a single proper cannon yet in 12 months since picking this hobby up because I had to start almost totally from scratch. That is, getting the equipment and learning the knowhow, plus the police.

I stay in Singapore. Everything-under-one-roof hardware stores (eg McMasters) don't exist here (I learned about their existence from here), its small little family run stores all over the place, though mostly concentrated in a small district (the factories are another district). Besides, I'm a student, got no car, so every trip is basically walking carrying 10-20kg of stuff. Redeeming factor is that stuff is really cheap compared to what I see on the McMaster's & counterparts' websites.

Singapore has much stricter laws compared to all the Western nations, and all forms of explosives and firearms are banned here, including airsoft, BB guns, and firecrackers (a staple of Chinese New Year, and 70% of Singaporeans are Chinese). I don't understand why the Aussies complain that they have the world's worst rules there, the Singaporeans I know who studied there tell me that their laws are nothing compared to here. To add, my brother is a policeman, so its like having police monitoring everyday.

Ah well...........if only my environment wasn't so hostile.......but understandably, the trade off for having less crime and a safer environment. I know this isn't very relevant to topic, hope you don't mind the ranting.

[Ragnarok]

I've always found Araldite a bit disappointing in my views, not as strong as claimed, always a bit squidgy after use. Although I'm currently trialling it's use for bedding my air rifle neatly into the test stocks I'm making - not gluing it in, but covering it in grease to stop it sticking, then sitting in it in the inletting (which has been covered with Araldite), leaving it for a while to half set, then removing the rifle again to let the stuff finish curing.

Basically, what they suggest here on the Box o truth:
http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu75.htm

AHA! One step closer to JSR's whereabouts.
Europe, close to the equator...

Well, I'll be honest, I worked out where he lives a while ago.
It wasn't hard, I mean, all I had to do was hack into the US government's spy satellites, and look for the highest concentrations of epoxy emission spectra in Europe.

Well, the second bit is a joke, but I'm 99% certain about where he lives - I worked it out by taking in the facts I knew, correlating them, then eliminating what could still remain by working out where his airgun collection was and wasn't legal. It wasn't too tricky.

He lives in... *Flaming Pink Elephant falls out of sky and lands on Ragnarok*