gluing glass to glass

[Kev Williams]

One of my new customers is bombing me with large crystal and acrylic awards needing laser etching...

At the moment I have 3 big glass awards that have a separate clear top and blue base. It's nice they're separated as it makes etching the glass easy..

But I'm expected to glue the 2 pieces together. Never done such a thing- All I've found out so far is that I need UV activated adhesive.

Anyone know the procedure? Preventing bubbles, cleaning up the spillover, where to buy the adhesive, and what kind of equipment is needed?

Thanks in advance!

[Joe Pelonio]

Yes, trophy people normally use the UV light and adhesive made for it. I didn't do trophies but if I got a glass award, would take it to a guy that has the setup and does it regularly, he would charge just a few bucks.

[Scott Shepherd]

I've done it for a couple customers for years. We use the UV adhesive from Ikonics. They have a really thin one and a thicker one. We use the thinner one. I have a light fixture with 2 black light bulbs in it (18" or 24" tubes, I can't remember and I'm not at work).

I glue the joint with the thin adhesive using capillary action to wick it into the joint. I do that while it's the base is sitting on the bulbs. Once set in place, I normally tape it in place because it will slide if you aren't careful (don't ask how I know). I turn the lights in the room off, put a box over the black light setup and come back in a little while and it's all set. I think it only needs like 15 minutes or something.

It works really, really well and it'll glue glass to glass like nobody's business. I've actually tried to get it apart (since it was one that slid when drying) and it just wasn't happening. I called the manufacturer and they said "not going to happen, you need to order another blank. There's no way to get them apart". I told them it was a rush job with a tight deadline and she put me on hold and asked another coworker and came back with a couple of suggestions. None of them worked. Once it's glued, it's glued.

It's very easy to do, you can handle it, I'm positive.

[Richard Rumancik]

One possibility for UV-cure adhesives is Loctite Corp. Most major cities will have a rep or distributor and they could make a recommendation. They have quite a few options so it's best to talk to someone who knows the product line. Here is a page of the website:

http://www.henkelna.com/uv-cure-adhesives-14962.htm

[Michael Hunter]

You need to think about the UV curing lamp as well as the adhesive choice.

Many of the Loctite products need both UV-A and UV-B wavelengths to cure properly and lamps that produce both can be VERY expensive.
Choosing an adhesive which cures using UV-A only allows you to use the cheap lamps used for nail-varnish curing (~ $10-20 on ebay) or fairly inexpensive UV LED types.

The lamp must be powerful enough to cure the glue quite quickly. To some extent a longer exposure at lower power will work, but if it hasn't set within five minutes or so, then it is unlikely to reach the fully cured state even given a lot more time under the lamp. That said, I always leave the lamp on for at least 3 times the minimum needed "just to be sure". The Loctite data sheets explain all this, but unless you are a glueing expert it takes some concentration to understand all the ins and outs!

(Sorry that I can't give advice on the exact adhesive to use for glass-to-glass, but my experience has been with the glass-to-metal adhesives).

[Kev Williams]

Ok, so how is it applied, hypo-needle like plex glue?
What I have is a blue base about 2x7 inches x an inch or so thick, the top is about 1 x 6", and around a foot tall. It's not cheap...
Just set the top on the base, and needle-in the adhesive along the edges and it'll find its way in?
What about excess glue, does it just evaporate?
Will a typical fluorescent-tube black light work? (I may still have one from the '70s's ;) )

Thanks for the help... :)

[Michael Hunter]

That's the right way to do it, but excess adhesive won't evaporate so you need to be careful.

Black light tubes mainly give off UV-A, but old ones probably give off some UV-B as well so it is worth a try.
Test on some scrap glass and add a little puddle of adhesive. If the surface of the puddle is sticky after exposure (5 to 10 minutes), then the lamp is not good enough.

[Kev Williams]

Getting frustrated-- Can't find any glass award distributors that sell anything to do with glass adhesive. JDS, Marco, a few others, zilch.

Loctite sells a ton of UV adhesives, but mostly for industrial bonding. The ones I did find for glass are "amber" or "amber to clear" colored.

What's available on Amazon and Ebay is mostly adhesives to fix cell phones or gluing mirrors to windshields.

I found ONE website dealing with glass etching supplies that sells a UV glue, their testers come with a brush-on applicator, but there's a pic of a small needle-point plastic bottle...
FWIW, they also say a UV glass bond can be softened by heating to 270°. They sell a single UV floodlight and stand for $70, and the glue is reasonable I guess, $23 for 2oz, $40 for 4oz..
(here's the page) http://www.glass-etching-kits.com/uv_glass_glue_orders.htm

My biggest problem is time, I'd like to buy some locally. Delvies and Regional Supply are within a few miles, anything I could ask for in plastics they have, but no UV cure glue...

My New Hermes rep for the past 40 years has never had anyone ask him for UV glue before..

I could call a couple of award shops nearby that could maybe glue these together for me, but my customer who's needing this done used to be THEIR customer-- they found me, I didn't go looking, but still...

[Scott Shepherd]

Call Ikonics Monday morning. I can't find the adhesive on their site any longer, but if they stopped carrying it, then they'll be able to tell you where to get it. They sell glass awards for a living, so they've got a ton of knowledge with gluing it. Use them as a resource.

Yes, a normal black light works. We bought a small florescent light fixture, and 2 black light bulbs from Lowes years ago. Just put the bulbs in, turn the fixture on it's back, so the bulbs are facing up, sit the parts on the bulb, and be done with it. It's really that simple.

[Dave Sheldrake]

Have built a totally glass staircase using UV bonding system, 38mm thick treads literally bonded together over a 22 foot height.

Incredible stuff BUT expensive for the high grade, if Scotty has no luck I'll see if I can find out who supplied the stuff I used....

[Bert Kemp]

Kev I found this don't know if its what you want pricy I bet

http://crlaurence.com/crlapps/showline/offerpage.aspx?ProductID=70697&GroupID=42499&History=39324:42484:42486&ModelID=42499&pom=0

(http://crlaurence.com/crlapps/showline/offerpage.aspx?ProductID=70697&GroupID=42499&History=39324:42484:42486&ModelID=42499&pom=0)

[Neal Schlee]

Kemxert Corp. in Pa. makes the KOA line of UV glass adhesives. They also have glass adhesives that glue glass to many other materials.

Their KOA 325 is the best for glass to glass gluing. Lots of good glass gluing specs and info on their website.

www.kemxert.com (http://www.kemxert.com)

Neal

[Brian Leavitt]

I glue glass and crystal a lot. This is the stuff I use. I can't remember where I get it, but if I do I'll come back and let you know. You're more likely to break the glass than break the bond that this stuff achieves.

[Kev Williams]

I have 3 tubes of this coming from Zoro:
317354
I'm sure it'll work okay. Found out regular old superglue works fantastic to glue glass.

Too bad you have exactly 4 seconds to make it work. Not fun.

I did find out that with a dead-blow hammer and small, sharp wood chisel, you can break the 2 pieces apart!

Too bad the 2" thick piece of blue glass broke, UNDER the surface. Right where the chisel entered. Just a small break,
which is invisible when the 2 pieces of glass are put together.

Too bad that when you put more superglue between the 2 pieces of glass, the break lights up like neon.

--Can you tell my first experience with glass gluing didn't go so well? Funny thing was, the very first piece was perfect-
no bubbles, it looked fantastic after the excess glue was razored off. (which was easy enough)

Talk about a false sense of security-- ;)

Can't wait to try the UV stuff...

[Tucker Alford]

I use thin glue from http://www.etchedstone.net, I believe and will confirm. Initial bond is pretty quick at under 15 seconds.
I mostly attach crystal and glass to marble bases with just a single 24" black light bulb. The glue can be removed and the pieces salvaged with the use of a blow torch. Steady even heating for less than a minute while applying slight pressure breaks the bond. The glue pulls clean off one side and is easily peeled off as one piece with the aid of a razor blade.

[Martin Boekers]

I just had a piece done that was probably similar to yours. Since I don't have a UV system I decided to let a local trophy shop handle that part.
I had them glue the glass pieces together, then the piece to a marble base... I don't believe they used UV on this. The bond seems strong. If
I couldn't find a trophy/awards company to help my next bet would have been a local glass company, I'm sure they could do it..... I don't do
enough to set up a UV system and work out the process so I contracted it out..

[Kev Williams]

I actually called a glass company close to me that's been around a long time- they had no idea why I'd want to glue glass to glass. They wanted a part number for the glue.

Never mind... ;)

Superglue sticks like gangbusters, but after about 3 minutes of looking perfect, soon voids in the glue would appear.

317441

The bubbles that appear on the side of the glass are refracted reflections from the bottom. The way this glass is shaped, the farther to the right the bubbles are, the farther UP the glass you can see them. Just makes bad worse...

This is the one I broke apart and reglued. Found some Loctite "glass glue", NOT UV, just regular acrylate. Bubbled less, but still bubbled...

My first stab at this worked well at first, I used Loctite "GO2" glue- it's like liquid silicone. Bond was very good and totally bubble free. The bad part? Once I trimmed the excess with a blade, the edges of the glass caught the light along the glue, making the extreme edge of the bond look like a zillion tiny bubbles. Trying to cut into the seam deeper to shave the edge more just made it look worse. I think it's because the glue outside doesn't dry clear, it dries cloudy. Inside was crystal clear... It DID bond well, and with a lot of effort I was able to pull it apart. It would never just come apart by itself...

The new glue arrived, guess I need to bust this one apart again and see how it works! :)