The "All-Purpose" Fairytale

You can find it everywhere in advertising brochures and TV commercials: ALL-PURPOSE Glue.

As an inclined #customer, the name suggests to me that I can #glue anything together with these super #products. For instance, a selected advertisement from a well-known #manufacturer states: “The All-Purpose glue glues many materials together, quick and long-lasting.”

Yes…however, many materials are not “all” materials. And the name is “all-purpose glue”. There is usually additional information underneath that says: “…not suitable for styrofoam, PE, PP,…”. I repeat, the name is: “ALL-purpose glue”.

I don’t intend to find fault here, these are all top quality #adhesive products. But they aren’t all-purpose adhesives.

🤝 Adhesion 🤝

An adhesive that really can glue everything together can’t exist, from a purely #chemical point of view. “Glueing” generally means #bonding two surfaces with the help of an adhesive for as long as possible. Every surface has microscopically small indentations – no matter how smooth it seems to the human eye. The glue sets into these indentations and interlocks with the material. The technical term for this is adhesion.

On a superficial level one could say that the rougher the surface, the better the interlocking of the glue and its hold on the material. In addition, every material has a surface #tension that influences how the glue is distributed over the surface. #Metals generally have a good surface tension.

On the other hand, the surface tension of some plastics, like PE, PP, or PTFE, is very low and the glue can’t bond with the surface properly.

💪 Cohesion 💪

The glue also has an internal #strength, which is called #cohesion. It represents how hard the glue gets when it has dried. Many glues become so hard and have such a good interlocking effect with the glued material that it is more likely that the material will break than the glue.

💧 Many factors determine which glue to select 💧

There are thousands of different materials in the world that can be glued together today. All of these materials have their own surface structure. For instance, PTFE is extremely smooth compared to polished steel.

That’s why there can’t be one glue for everything, because many things influence an adhesive bond, such as the material surface, humidity, #oxygen supply and various environmental conditions.

We offer a wide range of different adhesives that can be used in a wide variety of #applications.

With such a large selection of different adhesives, the following question automatically arises: How do I find the right one for my application?

Which materials will be bonded together?

How large is the bonding gap?

What kind of stress, such as heat or moisture, will the joint be exposed to after bonding?

For the fast bonding of metals, plastics and rubber, you are well advised to use WEICON Contact VA 100 cyanoacrylate adhesive. It is used in many areas of industry. For work in #construction and assembly, where fast and precise work is required, WEICON Epoxy Minute Adhesive is suitable.

It gets a little more special when you want to bond aluminium or other light metals to and with each other. There are products for this purpose, such as WEICON Aluminium Minute Adhesive.

These are just three examples of countless adhesive applications. As you can see, there is the right specialist for every “bonding problem”, no matter how unusual.

Our WEICON Adhesive Finder will help you to find the right product!