Adhesive for sheet metal

[Bruce Darrow]

If you were tasked to laminate sheet steel to a plywood substrate (32 x 32), what adhesive would you use? Contact? PL/liquid nails? Other?

[Kevin Jenness]

We've used 3M 4200 polyurethanein the past.Their 5200is stronger but much slower curing. Pl 400 is similar. I would suggest comparing the specs/cost of each.

[Chris Fournier]

Having done this on several occasions I can say that contact cement works very well. I've been lucky enough to have a spray set up. Quick and efficient. No lumps...

[johnny means]

+ 1 on contact cement. I've literally done miles of store and restaraunt fixtures like this. Be sure to degrade first.

[Bruce Darrow]

Johnny - by degrade, do you mean abrade or roughen? I'm not familiar with the term or, possibly, the technique.

[Jamie Buxton]

I've used epoxy, in a vacuum press. Just like veneering, but the veneer is metal not wood.

[johnny means]

Sorry, I meant degrease. Metal often comes coated in a film of ick. We always wiped wveeyrhing down with laquer thinner. And yeah, shiny stuffay need to be roughened.

[Lonnie Gallaher]

I just did a test on attaching steel plate to a laminate substrate. I tried to get some information from the cabinet contractor, but he would not respond to my calls. I wanted something I could get locally and after researching some products, I tried Locktite PL 3X Premium construction adhesive.

I glued the steel plate to a piece of melamine. I did clean the substrates with lacquer thinner. I let is cure for 24 hours. I tried to break the bond by hammering it. The melamine broke before the adhesive failed.

I had to laminate two pieces of melamine recently and I used Titebond Melamine glue - what a mess. I wish I had looked at the Locktite product before. I will defiantly use it again.

[Bruce Darrow]

Lonnie - +1 on Titebond melamine glue - never again!

[John McClanahan]

The advantage to contact cement is that it is mostly dry when you stick the parts together, since the metal is a vapor barrier.

[Bruce Page]

LePage's Press-Tite Green Contact Cement works very well. Used to use it at work.

[Bruce Darrow]

Thanks all for the replies. With quick local procurement in mind, my first test will be contact cement (solvent based), preceded by an acetone wipe and some sanding to roughen the surface. If that's unsuccessful, I'll try a poly construction adhesive - whatever is on the shelf. I'll go brand name if available, or order the 3M if needed. Again, thanks for the steers.

[John Schweikert]

I glued 16ga cold rolled steel sheets to 3/4 plywood for a small restaurant countertop, equivalent of about 2-1/2 sheets of 4x8 steel. Used Loctite PL375 construction adhesive, worked great. Having even pressure/weight on the surface helps during the set time.

[Michael Kellough]

How do you spread the construction adhesive? Notched spreader? Do you use a roller on
the sheet?

[Bruce Darrow]

+ 1 on Michael's question. I'd be inclined towards a spreader, but wondering about PL setting time.

[John Schweikert]

How do you spread the construction adhesive? Notched spreader? Do you use a roller on
the sheet?

I applied a 1/4" bead no further than an offset of 1" from the edge (need edge support but don't want squeeze out), then laid in even beads for a consistent distribution. The goal is for the metal to have flat support with the adhesive, but the metal is not treated as exacting as a wood veneer and the Loctite was not spread like a wood glue. 16ga steel is thick enough that there is no flex once glued down. We installed wood trim the next day flush to the metal top.

If you're using a thinner gauge sheet metal, for example 26ga which is 3x thinner than 16ga, then I would suggest a thinner adhesive such as contact cement that spreads to cover the wood substrate entirely (with lots of even pressure clamping). None of this is building fine furniture. As with any project there is no single correct method, there are variations which all provide the same final result.

The sheet steel we used required a cleaning to degrease before gluing or brushing the poly topcoat. Simple Green works well as a general purpose cleaner.