These tape-based pressure-setting adhesives are just great for applications like sheer strakes and deck beams, no goop, no clamps, no sticky fingers. They actually get stronger with exposure to water. The only disadvantage is that you have to be able to apply 15 psi or so pressure to get the setting process started.
My 200MP test after a day showed OK shear strength but less peel strength than I hoped, so I’d go with 3M’s recommendation.
Thank you all for the information - its narrowing down to Goop, (or similar) tape or hot melt glue (HMG).
BTW I have (of course) examined the health and safety data sheets for the
Goop range and find that they are very coy about the material used and its safety. (Toluene is the solvent - so keep away from PS foam). I have elsewhere read (or possibly imagined) that the stuff is a neoprene-based elastomer
Philvin - your thinking is an inspiration:D - to build a flange into the hull to allow them to be joined square. This would also work well with either tape or hot melt glue. This I will try!
AND - for people to whom space is a problen (all inhabitants of Hong Kong, for example) you could make a Footy with 2-piece hull joined with, say, 3 bolts or 3 clothes pins! Add a telescoping mast and it could fit in a 6 inch cube!
Firstfooty, if you can read this on your holiday, thanks for the SLS**t suggestion. I have heard of it but never seen or smelled any.
Don; “trainers” are, indeed sneakers (to a first approximation). Thanks for your offer - how did the coke bottle test go? Since Coke contains quite a lot of Phosphoric acid, I believe (which is why it is a good loosener of rusted nuts) clearly not all acids affect PET!
So, since I am going to complete this hull for Liverpool (yes, I know its at Birkenhead. “To stand and stay still to the Birken’ead drill is a d****ed hard bullet to chew” ) I will use your finest suggestions - here they are available in my workroom or the UK.
Bow block and Transom - balsa sheet - HMG
inwales - iron-on wood edging with 1/8sq balsa for larger glue area
Fin Box - balsa inserted with HMG
Deck - probably pvc foam sheet - double-sided taped to inwales
Anchor - CQR - 1 Cwt with 30 fthms stud chain
Rig - sorry can’t tell you
For an eddicated person this is rambling of a really random order. What happened to grammar, syntax and sense?
But great ideas and assistance from the world
If it of any interest I can confirm from experiment that many other types of plastic bottles also heat-shrink neatly onto a former, including types not made of PET.
so perhaps its the blow-moulding process and not specifically the material.
Andrew
See my post, bottom of page 2. I have since done another test and the Goop doesn’t seem to set, maybe if you left it for a week or so. I also tried 3M double sided indoor carpet tape, it worked great, so I think Earl’s suggestion is the best. The carpet tape has questionable UV resistance although I have been taping my sails with it and they last at least 3 years. It has the advantage of no waiting, a plus for us impatient types.
Don
Thanks, I would not expect Goop to set well, as it works by evaporation, and when enclosed between two impervious walls, can only evaporate over the area of the exposed bit of the glue line.
But in the flange to flange case both tape and hot melt will work very well - as would bolts.
At this point it should be stated for the benefit of our American readers that 3M stands for Matelots, Marines and More and the Pusser’s Black Masking Tape comes in bottles of 1/6 Imperial gallon and is about 100 % proof. Rations of Pusser’s Black Masking Tape may not be stored and must be used with a dose of hydrogen oxide (grogged) to avoid halucinations and unconsciousness in the user. Failures to obey these rules (except by the Pusser) constitute a serious offence and may prove fatal.
Angus, you sound like an ex-Navy man. As a Sub-Lt (Supply) in the RCN®, I had the delightful experience of issuing “grog” aboard the cruiser HMCS “Ontario”, many years back. The rum locker was about as close to the keel as you could get without swimming.
Do you know the Navy rum has chopped up horse hair in it so that it’s identity cannot be willfully changed? It is the very best quality rum. It does not, however, glue bottles!
Rod
p.s. I haven’t heard about matelots in years. Does anyone still remember who they are?
Andy - talk about using sledgehammer to crack a nut. When I become Prime Minister, remind me not to make you either Chancellor of the Exchequer or First Lord of the Admiralty.
A.
PS How big a sub do you want to sink a Mersey ferry?
Officer of the watch, this is the Captain. I have the submarine, sound the calxon twice come below shut the upper lid and dive the submarine.
Mr Richardson, do you have a firing solution on the Mersea Ferry?
Yes sir tubes 2 & 4 are loaded with your new “McTrewin bottle footy’s”
and we have a shooting solution.
Very good Mr Richardson, what else do you have to report?
Well Captain i have it on good authority that the target area has very good facilities and a shore team are waiting for us next to the lake.
Local accomodation has been arranged within easy reach and we are expecting participation in the excercise area with other elements from international navies.
Very well Mr Richardson, release the footy’s Birkenhead needs us
NB The CSS Shenandoah was bulit by Lairds (later Cammell Lairds) of Birkenhead. At he end of the mericn Civil War she made an extremely hazardous voyage from the West coast of the US to Liverpool with no coal, no spares and no money to give herself up into ‘neutral’ hands.
When the CSS Alabama (built in Glasgow) was sunk by the USS Kearsage off Cherbourg, most of her crew were picked up by the yacht Deerhound, owned by ‘a Liverpool genteleman’ which just happened to be passing by.
A clue: immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War, the output of Olham (the biggest of the Lancshire cotton spinning towns) exceed all foreign output put together. Northern blockdes of southern cotton were not welcome.
Sorry to interrupt your deeply nautical tete-a-tete-a-tete-a-tete, I hoped to deliver a progress report on sticking bottle material in theory and practice!
First - the story so far
The bottle hull has progressed well, and is comparable in weight to a recently moulded epoxy-glass version - 23gms with inwales fitted
Next step is fin box and then deck. Not sure what the deck will be made of, but it will be glued down to 1/8 inch square Balsa deck rails.
Information on what doesn’t work - for me at least
Iron-on wood edging: I tried applying several pieces of this to sections cut from bottles. To melt the adhesive I needed so high an iron temperature that the PET shrank radically - then the adhesive bond was strained because the substrate was distorted - not a success, no need to repeat!
For the same reason I am sure that Iron-on hemming tape would lead to the same distortion.
I have attached the transom and bow former with hot melt glue - this seems successful but the top edges are able to peel away - I have fitted a bow hook, and will fit stern hooks to prevent this.
My plan to fit the inwales as iron-on wood edging was modified - see note above. I have fitted them with double-sided tape - easy and seems successful.
Next up is the fin box - assorted wood. This will be bonded into the hull with hot melt glue and to the deck with a suitable wood glue.
Rudder bearing tube will be passed thru a block of 1/4 balsa on the bottom of the hull, and the block will be shaped to fit the transom and bottom hull shape. Hot melt to fix the block, then cyano for the bearing tube.
Rudder operation will (probably) be a whipstaff, or possibly tipstaff mechanism. This will be fabricated from solid brass, filed from the solid and silver-soldered where necessary to maintain its strength.
Goop or similar
Digging thru my old adhesives I came across a tube of Zap-a-dap-a-goo, which I take to be similar to some of the GOOP family (American data sheets - I’m amazed they can sell it in Europe - certainly not to business)
It adheres very well, but as Philvin reported it cannot set by evaporation ofthe solvent, as it can’t get away. This would probably be a good adhesive for balsa to PET joints, for example.
Welding
In the interests of science I lit up my soldering iron and had a go at welding - and can report pretty good success!
Deeply unscientific I:
established that 260 Deg C is the best temperature I found.
Lap jointed two bits of PET (cut up bottle)
“tacked” them together by melting a hole in the two pieces (pointed iron tip) to hold them together
welded both lap edges by running the tip of the iron down the seam
The “weld” was strong, extended into the base material, but was a little messy and unpreditable
This also worked to make a tube approx 20mm diameter, but would have been easier over a wooden former.
I also tried an edge weld - fairly successful,
and welding PET to different plastics both spot welding and seam welding - also promising.
As a next step I will
modify one of my soldering irons to have a more suitable bit to improve the joint geometry.
Make a power controller from a light dimmer - to allow me to control it.
more when it happens, pictures may follow
andrew
ps I once delivered a talk to RN base managers. It was subtitled “From one Andrew to the other”
The bottle boat I was making with sterling help from you all took to the water at the Euro GP, got named in Swedish, and looks very pretty in action - and see-thru.
Further hulls have been shrunk, and passed out into the world!
The indefatigable AndyT has identified a very promising glue which I had completely ignored, as I have never used it. It is a 2-part acrylic (like Stabilit Express ) and claims to be very suitable.
No doubt as I write tests are proceeding.
Would anyone with Stabilit express on the shelf like to make a couple of trial joints on pop bottles and let us know the results? TIA:)
more as it unfolds - my thanks as before to Andy for the pictures
andrew
By the way - what you can see through the hull in the lying-on-the-bank pic are:
Blue bit at the stern - a foam packer that the rudder servo attaches to
Bits each side of the keel - these are the batteries in two 2ubes which hold them lying flat with 2 cells in line each side of the keel box.
The 2ubes are made of laminating film, copper wire and rubberbands and are velcroed to the hull so that they could be adjusted fore and aft for trim, and removed for battery changes. the red band at the aft end of the port 2ube is a red tape band to remind me of the positive end!
The loose yellow wire in the bow area is an aerial - I cut all my aerials short and add a plug, and each boat has a built-in copper wire with socket to return the length to ideal. Because I was “lashing” this up with an old 27 MHZ Rx of mine, and Angus was going to add his own 40MHZ set; I just used a jumper lead with croc clips to apply “enough” aerial
A local hardware store had a product called “Loctite Plastic Bonder”. It is a CA glue with 2 parts. The first part is like a felt-tip pen which is used to coat the 2 surfaces with an accelerator. The second part is a tube of CA glue, which is to be spread on one side of the joint. It is advertised as an “advanced system for hard-to-bond materials”.
I tried it out on 2 pieces of curved plastic bottle. It didn’t appear to cure, since I could see stuff moving around inside the joint. Apparently there was too much gap between the surfaces. So I pinched the 2 pieces together and held them for 30 seconds. Then the internal movement was gone, and the pieces appeared to adhere. Fortunately, My fingers did not adhere (by accident, not by careful handling), and I avoided the affliction of Footy Finger. However, I tested it after a few hours of curing, and was not completely happy with the result, as it was easily peeled.
