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Structural adhesives can be used in place of mechanical fasteners and welding.
By Anya Rao
Adhesives have earned a place in the signmaking world as an accepted alternative to welding and mechanical fasteners. Adhesives manufacturers traditionally faced a hard sell to the sign industry. But now, structural adhesives are more widely used, and their benefits are becoming more apparent.
Structural-adhesives manufacturers tout their products as being just as strong — or stronger — than mechanical fastening or welding for the assembly of such sign types as channel letters, cabinet signs, post-and-panel signs and others. $image1
Adhesive types
Tom Repczynski, national sales manager for Adhesives Engineering and Supply Inc. (Seabrook, NH), which produces the Extreme Adhesives brand, recommends the family of methyl methacrylates, which are modified acrylic adhesives, for sign assembly. The 1:1 ratio product mixes two components automatically when they come out of the static mixer. Repczynski said it's difficult to inaccurately mix it.
The company's industrial adhesives can bond cement, ceramic, metal, plastic, wood and more — anything but glass and rubber, Repczynski said.
To determine the appropriate product for your signshop's job, Repczynski says to consider project parts' sizes and the timeframe in which they need to work. Work time greatly impacts adhesive selection, because various adhesives in the same product family cure at different times.
For a small project, you might only need a product with a five-minute cure time, but for a 4 x 8-ft. sign, you'll need more work time before the product cures.
|1983| (Cary, NC) offers various structural adhesives, including cyanoacrylates (a Super Glue-type product), urethanes, epoxies and acrylics. The acrylics most commonly are used to bond signage parts, said Alan Hawkes, Eastern regional sales manager for Lord Corp's industrial assembly and components group.
Chad Hogancamp, industrial adhesives manager for IPS Corp. (Gardena, CA), said the company manufactures fast-acting, single-component, solvent cements that chemically fuse plastics, plus structural adhesives that bond metal to metal or metal to plastic. The longstanding, one-component product comes in an applicator syringe.
The more recently introduced two-component structural adhesive requires no hand mixing. A dispenser gun mixes it properly in the nozzle tip, he said.
Adhesives vs. fasteners
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