Gluing Wood to Metal Question

An upcoming project necessitated my gluing a piece of 1/4” aluminum (6061 if that matters) to a piece of Bolivian Rosewood. Full plane-to-plane contact and gluing.

My plan is to completely clean off the aluminum, abrade the surface (that’s going to be glued) well and as a last step, clean it thoroughly with rubbing alcohol or mineral spirits and let it air dry before gluing. The wood will be belt-sanded perfectly flat and also well-abraded before gluing. I plan on getting a good two-part epoxy glue from a local West Marine store.

I’ve never done this before, and the above is the best game plan I’ve been able to put together.

Any comments, ideas, suggestions or experiences? Am I on the right path or headed for disaster?

Thanks for your help.

Your preparation sounds good. This is what This to That recommends for glue.
http://www.thistothat.com/cgi-bin/gl...etal&that=Wood

Bruce - Try Loctite Weld. Good luck - and please post your results.

Pen turners glue brass to all sorts of woods using a process very much like what you're proposing. (Roughen, solvent clean, epoxy.) Go for it!

Great to hear that my intuitive game plan was on the right track! Thanks for your inputs.

To take it a step further -- The pieces I’ll be gluing together will be shaped in a Y or X configuration and no bigger than around 5”x6” in size, so I presume that’s viewed as “small” size.

In terms of clamping... I was going to put the two pieces I’m gluing together between two boards and put about 40 or 90 pounds (I’m not sure of which) of weights on top of the upper board and letting it sit for >24 hours. I figured a large surfaced weight-applying approach was preferable to the localized “pincers" approach of clamping. Does this also sound like a sound approach? Thanks again for your insights and help.

Be careful with your temp window.With aluminum,I'd be running more near the upper end,ex:If the epoxy(or whatever you're using)has a 65 - 100 degree cure temp,run the 100.Just a gut feeling on the aluminum.Good luck.

When making pens, I just use CA to hold the aluminum between pieces of wood but that is strictly for speed's sake. The epoxy is a much better way to go (that's what I use to glue the brass tubes into the blanks). You have the process down though you could probably skip the cleaning (though the belt and suspenders approach never hurts). Once you abrade the surface, all impurities should be gone. Rosewood is fairly dense so you might want to scuff the surface as well so it isn't to smooth and the epoxy has a tooth to stick to.

Attachment 279908

Give Locktite Professional 3x a try. It is a caulking gun applied urethane adhesive. It will glue just about anything. It is available at the big box stores.

Nah dudes, nah
Epoxy is good stuff and all and I use it but aluminum moves a lot with temp and wood moves a lot with moisture in the air.
So
My first choice would be contact cement. I have posted several choices. The first two are DESIGNED to be used on aluminum. Not that epoxy wouldn’t stick for ever and ever to aluminum. But it dries so hard and rigid. Better for wood to wood or metal to metal than a mix.

In the end it probably doesn’t matter a rink but I figured I would get all nit picky in the details.
Hey somebody has to do it.

This one runs harder more like varnish but clearer like dried soda pop

This one more rubbery but light butter colored when dry. Ignore the one star. I have used it professionally for years and years and it is a great product.

Or two other similar products :
This holds car bodies together in all sorts of temp swings

This stuff has kept the soles on my work shoes day in and day out for thirty years. I resole my crepe soled shoes with it no stitches or nails just this glue. 100 % every time.
To pull the old soles off I put the shoes in the oven at 150° for a little while, pull them out and grab the sole with channel lock pliers and peal it off.

A coat on shoe and a coat on new sole . . . let dry until dry to the touch (let the solvent ”flash” off as per the manufacturer’s instructions) and stick them together. Walk around a bit and trim and grind the edge to perfection. Works every time.

PS: on your aluminum I would clean the final surface with denatured alc.
rubbing has water in it
paint thinner takes too long to dry.

The wood I would hand plane flat. Sanding is ok but not as flat. In any case do it within a few hours or less of glueing. Twenty four hours and tests have proven surface tension from oxidation forms on the wood and inhibits glue "wetting" the surface.

Use Shoe Goo, its available everywhere and it will handle the different expansion/contraction rates.
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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Keith Outten

Use Shoe Goo, its available everywhere and it will handle the different expansion/contraction rates.
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That was my question that the project could be a fail due to different rates.... SPLIT down the length. I had a fail with 4 x 4 Ceramic tile inlayed in wood.... snapped the tile in half along the board length.

I believe that if I would have only glues a stip along the length of the board and tile then it would let the outer edges move.

My only comment is do not use mineral spirits; either use denatured alcohol or a solvent that totally evaporates, such as acetone or MEK. Acetone is what is recommended for aluminum prep for TIG welding, and it would be my first choice.

I recently got my hands on some honeycomb aluminum and thought I'd cast it for pen blanks using just plain old Alumilite resin and sell them at my shop https://penblanksales.com. I did not think to prep the aluminum at all and just went ahead and poured the resin in, popped it in the pressure pot, and cut it up for blanks once cured. I have not had a single blank turn worth a darn and I can't sell them because they'll blow up on the customer. :(

After reading through forums and Facebook groups, it seems that the previous poster is right about temperature and cleaning. The aluminum just gets funky when the heat of turning happens. And the fact that I didn't do any sort of metal prep cleaning, well there was likely material on the aluminum that prevented the resin from bonding properly. Chunks just fly off and the blank is useless. I'd def. take the above advice and try cleaning with the proper material and using a glue instead of an epoxy resin like I did.