Glueing wood to stainless steel

[jeffrey bailey]

Adding wooden scales made of Padauk to a flat stainless steel bottle opener. I'm going to drill the scales and opener and use aluminum pins to line everything up. Then glue pieces of holly over the pins. My question is what glue to use for glueing the scales to the opener?

[Ole Anderson]

I would suggest something like gorilla polyurethane.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Knife makers generally use a two part epoxy.

This to that (http://www.thistothat.com/) can give you an answer.

[Wayne Lomman]

Epoxy. Roughen the contact area on the stainless first. Cheers

[Bob Deroeck]

Gluing to SS is a challenge. I suggest using 3M 5200. Note it takes about a week for the 5200 to cure most of the way.

Bob

[andy bessette]

Epoxy. Roughen the contact area on the stainless first. Cheers

This is foolproof. Clean surfaces with acetone or industrial alcohol before bonding.

[Brad Shipton]

Call the West Systems tech service line, and they will confirm what Wayne mentioned. I did not long ago. Prep is the key. I was working with different substrates, but he was very helpful to solve my problem.

[jeffrey bailey]

Thanks everyone. Looks like it will be epoxy.

[Ted Phillips]

I've built hundreds of knives this way. Definitely use acetone or another solvent to degrease the stainless. I would also abrade it with some sandpaper to give a bit more surface for the adhesive to bite.

The only glue I would use for bonding the handles is West Systems GFlex (http://www.westsystem.com/specialty-epoxies/gflex-650-toughened-epoxy/). That is the choice of many in the knifemaking community. I've never had a failure with it - and many other adhesives have failed on me over the years.