How long does it take Gorilla glue to expand (not cure)?
October 29, 2019 9:13 PM   Subscribe

You know how gorilla glue expands as it cures? I know curing takes 24 hours, but how long does the glue expand for and when does it start expanding? Alternative suggestions to gorilla glue also welcome.

I'm considering using gorilla glue for a project. I will glue duct tape to wood. This is a very small joint and it's important to me for aesthetic reasons that I not end up with gobs of yellow gorilla glue sticking out of the seam. I'm wondering if it might be possible to keep an eye on it during the expansion phase and wipe away any glue seeping out. If it expands for the whole 24 hours, obviously not, but a window of a few hours I could probably manage.

I have removed excess gorilla glue with an x-acto knife before, but this will not work here.

For alternatives, this needs to REALLY stick. Like survive a toddler playing with it daily and pulling every which way stick.

As always, my parenting AskMes are not at all what I would have guessed they would be before I had a baby.
posted by If only I had a penguin... to Grab Bag (20 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I would use a two-part epoxy, with a clamp.
posted by vegartanipla at 9:32 PM on October 29, 2019 [2 favorites]


The clamp time for gorilla glue is 1-2 hours, and I'm pretty sure that's also how long it will be expanding, because if it expands after you take the clamps off that would weaken the joint.

Are you gluing to something that already has duct tape stuck to it? That is, to the non-adhesive side of the duct tape? Or are you gluing to the adhesive side, trying to attach the tape better than its own adhesive would do?
posted by aubilenon at 9:44 PM on October 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I'm glueing the non-adhesive side of duct tape to the wood. The duct tape itself is it he other "part". It (The duct tape) is not holding something else on.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:46 PM on October 29, 2019


Response by poster: Oh wait, correction...so in order to get the duct tape cut and folded/configured correctly, I actually printed a paper pattern and stuck it to the adhesive side of the duct tape. The black side will be visible. So that means I would be gluing paper that is stuck to ducttape to wood. Presumably pretty much any glue would seep through the paper and cure to the duct tape itself, I would imagine.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:48 PM on October 29, 2019


Two hours max, in my experience.

I don't understand what you're gluing but I recommend recreating the specifics with scraps and doing a test.
posted by hydrophonic at 10:29 PM on October 29, 2019 [3 favorites]


Gorilla Glue Clear foams not, optically clear, self leveling, strong.
posted by hortense at 11:30 PM on October 29, 2019 [1 favorite]


I also question your glue seeping through the paper theory. It seems like you’ve made some sort of origami thing out of duct tape? And you want to glue it to a wood thing? Any chance you can make another one without the paper pattern using what you learned doing the first one?

As for glue, I’d go with one of the 2-part epoxies. Those things are magic.
posted by Weeping_angel at 2:04 AM on October 30, 2019


Response by poster: hmm...ok, I'm leaning toward superglue or gorilla glue clear. Epoxies are so messy and this is so small and fiddly. ..but now I"m realizing it's even more complicated. The paper/duct tape will actually stick to modpodge, not the wood directly.

I'm realizing this is more complicated than this question and adding the details here isn't great because no one who doesn't know about gorilla glue will read my details/questions. So I went ahead and blew my second AskMe.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2019


I recommend ThisToThat.com
posted by theora55 at 6:38 AM on October 30, 2019 [1 favorite]


If you're gluing porous stuff to a mod podge surface, I don't understand why you wouldn't just use a little more mod podge. Why make a glue seam that's either stronger or weaker than the surface it's attached to when you can just use more of that very same surface material as glue?
posted by flabdablet at 7:56 AM on October 30, 2019


An aside: If this is a project that a toddler will be playing with, I would first investigate the potential toxicity of both the duct tape and whatever glue to decide on. I would not want any toddler of mine chewing on duct tape, superglue, Gorilla Glue, or epoxy without knowing whether it is safe.
posted by beagle at 8:27 AM on October 30, 2019


Response by poster: He won't chew any of it.

I'm pretty sure a tug on the duct tape would dislodge it from modpodge. Though I was thinking of podpododging over the seam a little more once it's all glued just to give it more of a smooth transition.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 8:32 AM on October 30, 2019


As described none of these are likely to work, not because of the adhesive but because of the other materials involved. N-thing a clear, food safe epoxy.
posted by aspersioncast at 9:58 AM on October 30, 2019


I'm pretty sure a tug on the duct tape would dislodge it from modpodge

But how would that happen? The mod podge is not going to just come unstuck from your papered-up tape once it's set, because it's going to soak into the fibres of the paper. So either the layer of mod podge gluing the tape to the rest of the piece is going to break, or one of the surfaces that that layer is attached to is going to tear out. And if one of those layers is itself made of mod podge, then all you're going to achieve by using a stronger and/or tougher glue than that is guarantee the integrity of the glue layer at the expense of the surface you've glued it to.

If you've used mod podge enough to have a good feel for how strong it is and your best guess is that in this application it's not going to be strong enough, then rather than looking for tougher adhesives you're probably better off re-engineering your glue joints to give them more surface area, spreading the pulling load from your inquisitive toddler over a larger section of the mod podge base surface.
posted by flabdablet at 10:52 AM on October 30, 2019


Response by poster: But how would that happen?

By pulling. A finger stuck into the open end and pulling would just peel it off easily. picture you modpodged a ribbon to something and left the end of the ribbon loose. Pull up on the ribbon and the mod-podge unsticks. I need clue that will resist the pulling.

Anyway, such glue does not exist. I tried epoxy and (at the suggestion of the duck tape company) contact cement. Neither holds. Don't try to glue duct tape. It can't work.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 4:04 PM on November 7, 2019


I need glue that will resist the pulling

The point I'm trying to make here is not that mod podge is your best possible choice in glues, but that trying to solve the problem you currently have by looking for a stronger glue than mod podge is probably not your best way forward.

What you need to find out is exactly how your present glue joint is failing, by close examination of the failed joint, preferably using some kind of powerful magnifier. It doesn't matter how strong your glue is if it's actually the surface it's stuck to that's tearing itself apart when the joint fails, which I strongly suspect that it is.

The fix for that is to use stronger surface materials (is it part of the mod podge side that's tearing out, or part of the paper attached to the duct tape, or the glue between the duct tape base material and that paper?) and/or redesign the joint to give it more surface area and/or arrange for the load it's bearing to be more in shear than in tension (it's usually easier to peel apart a joint to a flexible material than to pull it to pieces strictly sideways).

The only good reason to start reaching for stronger glues is if it's the cured glue itself that's breaking when the joint fails, or if the failed joint shows evidence of adhesion failure between the glue and the surface material with no damage visible to either.

Something else you might want to think about is taking advantage of the permanently sticky glue that's already there on the duct tape rather than trying to get rid of it with a layer of paper, which just makes your joint include extra layers and therefore extra failure modes. If you can get decent adhesion to the rigid side of your joint with a contact adhesive, you might well find that using the duct tape stickum as if it were the other side of a contact adhesive joint* works about as well as anything else possibly could.

But all that said, I really do think that the most likely explanation for the failures you're seeing is that your joint area is just too small for the loads being applied to it.

*i.e. rather than applying contact adhesive to two surfaces, letting it set up until it's tack-free and then pressing the surfaces together, you apply contact adhesive to the rigid surface, let it set up, then press the sticky side of the duct tape onto that and burnish the back side to secure the bond as well as it possibly can be.
posted by flabdablet at 12:15 AM on November 8, 2019


Response by poster: It's peeling off like it never stuck. Leaving smooth surfaces on both sides (a smooth coat of glue on the wood and a smooth coat of duct tape on the duct tape. And I've tried it on the adhesive side too (i.e. without paper). The tests were actually on non-modpodged wood (just plain wood).

Interesting idea on the contact cement duct tape...to be honest I'm not eager to do any more contact cement tests given the terrible fumes, but maybe....

Anyway, i've moved on to trying a fabric (not duct tape) based solution and finding that this ends up way too thick (fabric stuck to cardstock with modpodge and the fabric ends loose so only fabric (no cardstock) would be glued to the trains). It would probably glue but it looks terrible (somehow the modpodge makes it unworkably thick. I think next step is to try construction paper instead of cardstock and see how that looks. But failing that I'm thinking either

1. Forget anyting that looks like real articulation. Sew elastic to fabric to make a sort of elastic-gathered tube.
2. Maybe just leave the 3 cars separate? That seems like the worst option and i might not even try to make the articulated one if I can't connect them cars.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 3:27 PM on November 9, 2019


a smooth coat of glue on the wood and a smooth coat of duct tape on the duct tape. And I've tried it on the adhesive side too

Wait, does that mean your correction needs correcting and you are trying to make glue stick to the shiny (non-adhesive) side of duct tape? Because yeah, that's going to be damn near impossible; that side is coated with a waxy release agent so that all the adhesive stays on the sticky side as you peel the tape from its roll.

I'm guessing the reason you picked duct tape in the first place is because you're looking for a material that can hold creases like paper but won't rip like paper. Have you considered stiffening fabric with paint? If you tape a piece cut from an old bedsheet stretched out onto a board, with baking paper between the fabric and the board to stop it sticking, paint it whatever colour you want and let it dry, it should hold creases very nicely and remain quite gluable.

If you did want it to be chew-safe, you could use raw (not boiled) linseed oil instead of paint and leave it out in the sun for two weeks to cure.
posted by flabdablet at 6:00 AM on November 10, 2019


Response by poster: Tests involve both sides of the duct tape for the sticky side I've tested with and without paper. Yeah, the shiny side is the worst.

Latest tests involve fabric and while I expect the gluing would not be a problem, the articulation looks terrible.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 6:06 AM on November 10, 2019


Have you tried gaffers tape? It doesn’t stick as much as duct tape, but you’re gluing it anyway. The non-sticky side is more like cloth so maybe your whatever glue you end up using will stick to it better.
posted by Weeping_angel at 10:55 AM on November 12, 2019


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