Bonding Wood to steel angle iron

[George Bokros]

I am making a shelf for the closet organizer I am building. The span will be 48" the shelf will be 16" deep and 1" thick, material is soft maple. I want to bury 1/2" angle iron in the shelf but hide it completely. What would you recommend to use to adhere a wood strip over the angle iron?

The shelf will be stained so I cannot compromise the ability to take stain.

Thanks

[Tom M King]

http://www.lowes.com/pd_388026-69-19056557_0__?k_clickID=a4c36708-a8c9-4049-8455-ef121dbac9f3&store_code=1798&productId=50200595&selectedLocalStoreBeanArray=%5Bcom.lowes.commerce. storelocator.beans.LocatorStoreBean%40171e171e%5D&storeNumber=1798&kpid=50200595&cm_mmc=SCE_PLA-_-Paint-_-ConstructionAdhesives-_-50200595%3ALOCTITE_PL&CAWELAID=&CAWELAID=320011480002783718

After it dries for a day, you can shave any excess off with a sharp chisel. I'm curious to see if 1/2" angle is large enough to prevent sag for what load.

[Myk Rian]

Epoxy. Don't need angle iron. Flat iron on edge in slots will do it. That's how I built my RAS table.

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[George Bokros]

[QUOTE=Tom M King;2537913After it dries for a day, you can shave any excess off with a sharp chisel. I'm curious to see if 1/2" angle is large enough to prevent sag for what load.[/QUOTE]

Figuring on 50# total load. Items will be sweaters and shirts.

Sagulator calculates that at 1" thick it should be fine without the metal. I could instead put a face strip on the front 3/4" x 1" but want to make sure it does not sag hence using the angle iron.

[peter gagliardi]

Figuring on 50# total load. Items will be sweaters and shirts.

Sagulator calculates that at 1" thick it should be fine without the metal. I could instead put a face strip on the front 3/4" x 1" but want to make sure it does not sag hence using the angle iron.
If your using solid lumber, you could stack sweaters 8' high on it with no sag!
People are so used to seeing how poor that garbage particleboard and MDF are at supporting weight, that they don't realize just how strong wood is!
Add to that, the fact that every moisture cycle change with the PB and MDF product allows them to "creep or sag" more with each one if there is any kind of weight on it.

[Chris Fournier]

I agree with Peter, 1" Soft Maple will not require any help supporting the load you are talking about. I would not get into the metalwork if this was my project.

[George Bokros]

Thanks for the input Chris and Peter. I guess I will forgo the steel insert, makes things easier.

[John Blazy]

Tom king Nailed it on the head. I was a professional cabinetmaker for about 12 years before being a finish chemist, and discovered that the PL Premium polyurethane construction adhesive is absolutely the most verstatile and dare I say best adhesive in the world in a cabinet shop. Bonding wood to steel - no better bond. Way better than epoxy. Test it an find out.


I did break tests of all other woodworkers adhesives and joining systems with angle samples placed over an arbor press on top of a scale to measure peak load weight before breaking. All butt joints with PL beat all other systems - screws, dados, biscuits, dowels, etc.

Then their is PL's ability to bond to dissimilar materials: Porous plywood edges to steel - excellent. glass to wood - awesome. wood to stone - nothing better. PVC to wood: prime the PVC with pvc cement, and lay the wet PL coated wood into the wet PVC, and it is a virtual weld. I have huge 100 lb wall mirrors hanging from plywood glued to the inside of veneered PVC pipe - never a break - see pic below.

Half of my boat is made with PL (epoxy for all else).


One of the greatest features is the expansion upon cure, while being slow enough in cure time, and low enough in viscosity to soak into end grain similar to epoxy pre-wetting. Gorilla glue is my second favorite, and will bond steel to wood as well, but is more expensive and has less cohesion than PL (lower viscosity is its best feature for soak in properties).

[Brian Henderson]

Epoxy. Don't need angle iron. Flat iron on edge in slots will do it. That's how I built my RAS table.

333084

I've done the same thing. You don't even need adhesive if you bury the iron in the wood. Where is it going to go?

[Lee Schierer]

The sagulator computes a sag of .030" with a 50 pound distributed load. I doubt you would even see that amount of sag if it actually sagged that much. 50 pounds is a lot of sweaters.
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