Glueing aluminium ?

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I’d just learn to like gold coloured ones, the search for perfection will drive you nuts

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Duplicate post

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

This is going round in circles; we don’t like gold colour because it clashes with our decor. Do you paint your house and your models in random clashing colours ?

And I am surprised that cars’ panels and windscreens don’t fall off after 30,000, if glues are really so poor and unreliable 🙂

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

They have access to job specific and sometimes one-off specialist glues not available to the general public.

[John Doe 2]

On John Doe 2 Said:

This is going round in circles  […]

A classic example of asking a simple, specific, question on a forum.

… respondents tell you what they want to say, not necessarily what you want to know.

It was ever thus.

MichaelG

[John Doe 2]

On John Doe 2 Said:

 

Nine doorway carpet dividers, 18 carpets unhooked and rolled back. The dividers removed and new ones bought and fitted. Then 18 carpets put back and stretched tight and hooked back in.

Versus fixing nine metal (or plastic, come to think of it), strips on top of what is there.

…

Problem is the assumption that simply sticking strips on top of the existing grippers will be fit for purpose.  Unfortunately, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the assumption because floors take a beating.   Fat blokes, ladies wearing high-heels, furniture removal men, and vacuum cleaners etc.  Glued strips may not last long.

Almost any glue would do provided the strip isn’t mechanically stressed.    But strips bonded to a carpet gripper are going to take a hammering, and no-one here has any idea how they will stand up to it.

I also worry about what happens if the answer becomes unsatisfactory after a few weeks and has to be undone.  A strong glue being difficult to remove, plan to replace all the existing grippers with new ones.  This is the job John is trying to avoid!

The risk of this ‘simple’ job spiralling into a failed botch is too high for my taste, which is why I suggested experimenting first.

Dave

 

[Maurice TaylorParticipant @mauricetaylor82093]

Hi,

There are 2 ways to do this job.

Have a go at changing one yourself.

Do it the best way , get a carpet fitter to do it properly,instead of bodging and spoiling good carpets.

Maurice

[HowiParticipant @howi]

please tell me why you have to remove the carpets???

You only need to turn them back a few inches.

I think you are making more of this than is neccessary, but, their your carpets etc

talk about making a mountain out of a mole hill!

[BazParticipant @baz89810]

Get a carpet fitter in to change them all for you, it will be quicker and cheaper in the long run.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

@MichaelG, yes, I am discovering that ! Very interesting the reaction one gets when one “thinks outside the box” for novel solutions. Also interesting that some are happy to spend my money to get a carpet fitter in at what, £200 a day?; to release and re-lay 18 carpet edges, and buy 9 new divider strips !

SoD, yes, I have already agreed that I will test one first.

@Howi, if you can tell me the trick to changing these strips without unhooking and re-hooking and re-tensioning 18 carpet edges, without employing a carpet fitter, I would be most interested.

In my research I found a video of a chap fly-cutting a thin aluminium plate on a mill, and he secured the thin piece to a thicker base plate with blue tape on each piece that he then superglued together.

Fly cutting takes quite a sideways force, I would have thought, and all I need is a similar secure bond. The forces will be mostly in compression downwards as the strips are occasionally stepped on, and they are below the carpet level, so cannot easily be hit from the side. Good point about removal men though – I will have to be careful not to pull heavy furniture across them.

I am now re-considering paint, or paint pens, or even decorative tape, if tape with a smart uniform surface is available. Or how about the sort of 25mm wide plastic edging that is used to stick on the edges of wooden panels, e.g. melamine shelving.

Don’t worry folks, I will not be “bodging” anything – I am aiming for a good solution here – if it looks rubbish, I will re-think it.

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

As an ex-removal man, I feel obliged to point out on behalf of the removal industry that we don’t drag heavy furniture around – it’s far easier to lift it, and why make work for yourself? Squeezing over-long sofas through doorways is another matter though, and might well catch on an add-on strip – in fact you have to watch out for the standard strips if they’ve been knocked around a bit.

Any sort of extra strip is likely to get kicked loose sooner or later unless, maybe, you could get a channel section which fits over the original so that its arms bite down onto the carpet either side. Even then I reckon it would be dubious if it wasn’t screwed down.

It seems to me that paint (if you prepare the anodised surface to take it) is a far better bet – I’ve painted skirting boards, stairs, etc. and with careful masking you can stop the paint getting on the carpet – watch out for capillary action dragging it under the masking tape though.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

No offence intended to your profession 🙂

Thanks for the comments.

[KenLParticipant @kenl]

Hi

Like many others I’m not sure I totally agree with the basic idea of glueing a top cover onto the existing strips of aluminium however……….

If you want to give it a go then earlier posts from Robert have the answer – use a PU sealant/adhesive. I’ve used these adhesives for years for attaching all manner of things to aluminium structures, mainly motorhomes or boats. It sticks like the proverbial and the only way you’ll ever get it off again is with a chisel. It also cures quickly and remains permanently flexible to won’t come loose from constant foot traffic.

For guaranteed results use a Sikaflex grade intended for marine or caravan repairs but these days I always use Puraflex 40 which is much cheaper and seems to perform just as well. Available online from loads of suppliers but I use a local merchant:

https://www.toolstation.com/puraflex-40-pu-sealant-adhesive/p67949

 

[John Doe 2]

On John Doe 2 Said:

… Very interesting the reaction one gets when one “thinks outside the box” for novel solutions. …

True small-c conservatism hurt British industry badly, but resisting change for emotional reasons isn’t the same as taking a disciplined approach to engineering risks.

No old dogs are objecting to the glued strip idea because they fear having to learn this new trick will make them look foolish!   The concern is that the idea isn’t man enough for the job, and could easily cost more than replacing the grippers conventionally.

Is this really a novel solution?  Fairly obvious I would say, in which case why aren’t DIY Stores full of kits?  Maybe because gluing strips doesn’t work well in practice.

The thrusting maverick who gets wonderful results by breaking all the rules and ignoring the suits is a favourite Hollywood trope.   Works extremely well on screen because the scriptwriters control everything that happens.  Sadly, real-life mavericks usually make a mess of things because having bags of confidence is no substitute for sorting out the devil in the detail.

Bottom line is that new ideas in engineering all go through a development process,  and the further the envelope is pushed, the more likely there will be trouble.   Some innovations are dead-ends, a few instant successes, and most require additional work.   My assessment is that this idea will require additional work.   At the moment, we don’t even know what the best glue for this is!

Paint is problematic too: it will get scuffed.   Would a house-proud owner tolerate that?  But paint is much easier to fix than glued strips if it goes horribly wrong.

Dave

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

It’s all very well respondents telling John Doe 2 how to spend his money, as he says above.  But those of us who actually answered his query of “How to GLUE aluminium” are now getting stick for answering the original question.  I don’t think any proponent of a gluing solution would disagree that having the strips replaced is the best option, just that it’s not answering the OP’s initial enquiry.  As usual, the thread has become the subject of thread drift – or more accurately, thread-veering.

I had to delete the first line of my first reply, which was to advocate replacement, when I realised it wasn’t germane to the enquiry.

John

 

[vic neweyParticipant @vicnewey60017]

We had a gold coloured one at our old house years ago, underneath is just regular Aluminium and I removed the colour with wet & dry paper and then polished it on my grinder mop, worked a treat so maybe look at that

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

I’ve never lived in a house with fitted carpets from room to room like this but is this really in the top 100 jobs that need doing? Frankly I’m amazed that this forum has thrown up as many as two people who give a toss about such trivia.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Wow.

What a truly bizarre post, and what a depressing attitude. Maybe I have done the other 99 jobs already and this is the last one ?

Considering that metal working engineers need to apply great attention to detail to produce their models etc., not noticing or caring about something as blatantly obvious as a clashing colour in every room in your home, seems a significant oversight, and is a very odd attitude indeed.

When you need a replacement door hinge, or electrical socket, or water tap for your home, do you just buy any old one, or do you buy one that is the same, or one that at least matches the others ? What does your wife think about that ?

 

Anyway, luckily, some other replies have been much more sensible – and helpful – and I will be trying some of them out.

Thank you to the sensible posters – you all know who you are ! 🙂

[John Hinkley]

On John Hinkley Said:

It’s all very well respondents telling John Doe 2 how to spend his money, as he says above.  But those of us who actually answered his query of “How to GLUE aluminium” are now getting stick for answering the original question.  …

I thought the glue answers were fine in so far as they went, but the issue is whether or not glued aluminium will be strong enough to do the job.

For example, I often stick Aluminium turning jobs to an Aluminium stub-mandrel with super-glue.  Works well, except perhaps one in twenty turnings breaks the joint – glue doesn’t like side shear.    Conversely, the glue sticks so firmly that the stub-mandrel has to be boiled in water, or even blowlamped, to separate the parts.    Point is, although superglue sticks Aluminium, the bond may not meet John’s requirement.

In WW2, the De Havilland Mosquito famously flew faster and higher than all other piston engined aircraft.  Made of wood with lots of weight saving glued joints resulted in it having an extremely light airframe pulled by two high-performance Merlins.  The Mosquito was a cheap easy to make aircraft that didn’t require scarce materials.   On the face of it wood and many wood-glues were readily available, so what could possibly go wrong?

Germany being short of Aluminium, and not having anything that could catch a Mosquito made determined efforts to copy them and failed.   Reason was that the British had a suitable new glue and Germany didn’t.   The glue available to Germany at the time was and is good stuff, but it didn’t cope with wet, making their version of the Mosquito air-frame unsafe on top of all the other usual development problems.   For the same reason, British Mosquitos were rare birds in hot steamy parts of the world, because hot tropical damp attacked the glue and wood faster than cold European wet.

I don’t see any harm in exploring the hidden depths of a question.

Dave

 

[Dod MoleParticipant @georgeclarihew]

Sideways thinking :-  There seems to be enough headroom for an oak board shaped underside to fit over existing gold joint with gently rounded top then drilled and screwed through the already attached joint piece and holes neatly plugged

[HowiParticipant @howi]

I realy don’t know why people bother, he wants a botch job, let him have a botch job.

The realists on here know he will have to do the job properly sooner or later, it will just have cost him more in time labour and money.

Sme have said we are not answering the original request, the reason is we KNOW it will all end badly and we are just trying to save his time effort and money, something a lot on here including the original poster, don’t like.

So! enough is enough, go ahead and make a complete botch of it, probably ruining the carpets while your at it, who cares! we told you what we think, you have told us to effectvely ‘sod off’

So! off I go to more interesting posts.

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

Absolutely no need for that outburst, and I have clearly stated that I am not interested in doing a “botch job” !

There have been quite a few very useful replies and suggestions from others on this thread – thanks again to those folk – and I am currently deciding which one(s) will suit my application, and which methods I can perform best to give the best results.

[quote]….. It’s a simple and straight forward job anyway!……..[/]

I have asked you directly, twice, how to change carpet strips, but you either don’t know or you won’t tell me.

 

As far as glueing metals together being a bad or substandard idea: Be careful Howi, when you next drive your car, because many of the support frames behind the body skin are bonded together. As is the support frame under the bonnet. And your windscreen is very likely to be bonded in as well, and it forms a structural part of the chassis. More modern cars have their external panels and wings etc., bonded onto the monocoque.

Be careful also when you next fly in an aircraft: Many panels and structural components are bonded together, and the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” is made largely from bonded carbon fibre.

 

Keep taking the tablets………

[John Doe 2Participant @johndoe2]

By the way I also find your comments deeply offensive. I did NOT tell anyone to “sod off”, nor would I.

[HowiParticipant @howi]

No! I am not going to tell you how to do it, if you can’t work it out that is your problem.All I will say is, I have done plenty and it is easy.

There are others who have said the same thing as I have, do it once and do it properly, you are going to have to sooner or later, why waste time and money.

For you to go over all the things that are glued together today, is a complete waste of time other than to convince yourself you are right.

Go ahead, do what you want, quite frankly I don’t give a damn, it’s not my time or money.

As for telling people to ‘sod off’, I never said you did!

read the post, you miss out the word effectively.

But then, I would not have expected anything else.

Any advice I give is to help, If you choose to ignore it because it does not fit in with your thinking, that is your problem – as they say ‘you can lead a horse to water, but…….’

You can say what you like and be as abusive as you want, quite frankly I don’t care as you are now on my ignore list.

 

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

If the old ones are anodised aluminium can you sandpaper the gold down to the silver aluminium underneath?

[Author]

Posts