LATE ARRIVAL FOR GLUE ARTICLE

By: Dick Pettit, the magazine is RC Report Online

I had completed the article about adhesives and the deadline for submitting the article and this column was rapidly approaching.  I had made arrangements to include another new adhesive in the original tests, but since it was sent from Canada, there must have been some delay in customs because it didn’t arrive until the day before I needed to send the completed documents to Tony for publication.  Anyway, I was able to make the same type of tests with the new adhesive, document the results and I’ll add them to this column.

This new adhesive is called SuperPhatic and it is available from Ontario Adhesives, 1337Lyndon Way, Kingsville, OntarioN9Y 2R2 519-733-0416 E-mail: info@ontarioadhesives.ca for more information.  According to their literature and web site, SuperPhatic is “…High penetrating yellow aliphatic glue for close fitting pre-assembled joints. Dries fast and bonds wood, foam and plastic. Waterproof when set and produces tougher joints than superglue...”  That sounds great to me, but I still wanted to see for myself exactly how well it worked.

SuperPhatic comes in a 50 ml plastic bottle similar to the ones that traditional instant adhesives are packaged in, as seen in PHOTO 3.

  It has a small opening at the top plus a small metal dispenser tip that regulates the amount and direction of adhesive flow when applying it to the surfaces to be joined.  The liquid adhesive itself is quite thin in consistency, about the same as whole milk.  It has no odor to speak of and will clean up with water.  What it does have is the ability to wick into wood and other materials to provide a tight bond.

I set up the same tests as were performed on the other adhesives using balsa, plywood and hardwood.  But before I made those tests, I tried a few drops of SuperPhatic on a balsa to balsa joint just to see what would happen.  I put a balsa stick on a piece of balsa sheet, applied a tiny bead of SuperPhatic on one edge and waited for it to wick into the wood.  I waited almost 30 seconds and it was still there on the edges of the wood. (PHOTO 4)

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I guess it wasn’t going to wick into the wood any time soon, so I walked away for just a minute and when I came back it had soaked into the wood just as advertised.  I purposely pulled the joint apart (PHOTO 5) to find that the SuperPhatic had soaked into both pieces of balsa all the way across the width of the material even though I had only applied it to one edge of the joint.  I put the joint back together again and then made up the rest of the test joints, pinning them to the work surface and allowing them to cure for 24 hours.  Ontario Adhesives says that SuperPhatic will be dry in as little as 2 hours, but since I let all the other glues cure for 24 hours, I wanted to give SuperPhatic the same chance.

The following day, I removed the pins from the joined pieces of wood and began testing the joints as I did for the original four adhesives.  Here are my findings:

Balsa Stick to Balsa Sheet: 16 pounds (joint broke)

Hardwood Stick to Balsa Sheet: 38.6 pounds (joint broke)

Hardwood Sick to Plywood Sheet: 39 pounds (wood broke)

Balsa Stick to Plywood Sheet: 18 pounds (wood broke)

Balsa Stick Tee Joint:  14.3 pounds (wood broke)

If you compare the results of the SuperPhatic to the other adhesives, it is at least as good as all the others. (PHOTO 6)  In several cases, however, it is clearly superior.  The hardwood stick glued to both plywood and balsa broke, leaving the joint intact.  This was at a pull strength almost twice that of the other adhesives, in the case of the balsa sheet.  The Tee joint was a bit stronger than the other adhesives in most cases.  All the other joints were just about the same strength.

I then put a few pieces of balsa together to form several edge-glued sheets as used for sheeting wings and fuselages.  Rather than use masking tape, I just pinned the two pieces of sheeting together, applied SuperPhatic to the joint and let it dry for 24 hours.  I then removed the sheet from the table, sanded the excess adhesive away from the joint was stronger than the wood itself.  The excess adhesive was still a little rubbery but sanded away easily leaving a smooth joint.

The next experiment was to glue two pieces of balsa sheet together.  This also cured for 24 hours and the joint was stronger than the material and was easy to sand smooth.

The final experiment was to glue a piece of stick balsa to the edge of a balsa sheet.  Again, after 24 hours to cure, the joint was at least as strong as the material and was easy to sand smooth.

Probably the only thing you will have to do differently when using SuperPhatic is to remove the little syringe end from the bottle, dropping it into a small glass of water.  If the SuperPhatic is allowed to cure in the metal tube, you’ll need to get another one.

I’ll give this SuperPhatic a more basic test when I start building my next kit project, which hopefully will be a few weeks from now.  Until then I’ll be trying it on lots more projects and I’ll let you know how things work out.  You may want to give it a try yourself.  Tell them you read it on R/C REPORT Online, too!