Adhesive Test on Polyethylene Plastic Kayak

Adhesive Test on Polyethylene Plastic Kayak

[@CyberN8]

Your video was great information, thank you. Last week I discovered that 5200 didn't work on my polyethylene kayak after trying to seal my kydex keel guard. It was a mess to clean and like you discovered had no sticking power. I appreciate your video, wished I saw it sooner :) #subbed

[@ppinthewoods3430]

Great Video Roy. I have been kayak fishing for well over 20 years and owned HDPE boats throughout the 1990's and have had my share of repairs and mods to do. I do product development and patternmaking for large scale rotomolded parts ( including kayaks ). I have an ongoing relationship with many manufacturers that produce rotomolded products. That gives me a lot of interaction with the engineers developing and supporting these products. I have wasted a small fortune on every possible bonding agent you an imagine and eventually found the Loctite 3035. It is the sole product that actually forms the equivalent of a chemical bond with HDPE. I did not video my tests but am about to do a repair on a small bass boat made of HDPE ( Basstender 11'3" ). I will video it and share when I open my KZbin channel to the public soon. The area to be repaired is the pulling eye on the front of the boat. I have used it to secure in hull backing plates ( 1/2" aluminum ) under some load bearing features on my own Hobies. The aluminum is still tight after almost 2 years. As I am sure you are well aware an initial setup of 3035 if you do not already own the applicator and a small collection of tips will be roughly $100. The $45 for the tube will really go a long way if you use scrap HDPE as filler or intermediate layers. In spite of the initial cost 3035 is by far the best ( and only in my opinion ) way to make a HDPE repair that is dependable. Thanks for your video. Really well done.

[@motleypixel]

Thank you, the chemical reaction you mentioned is in the base substance molecular structure which is called a Polyolefin: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyolefin I am not a chemical nor any kind of "degreed" engineer; though, I probably should have considered that undergraduate path (I'm in business IT now). The applicator tips are crucial for proper ratio and mix duration but I opted to some some $$ as my application periodicity is very low and I just used a wooden dowel and marked equal squeez-outs. Good luck with that bass boat pulling eye repair. Remember material shoring in/around in addition to proper adhesive/fastener application will insure a proper repair. Cheers!

[@ppinthewoods3430]

@@motleypixel Thanks Roy. I have the backing parts for the patch all fit and the inside prepped up to the point of light sanding. My hold up is the weather to shoot the video and time out of my work schedule** to do it right. I have 1/4" aluminum plates formed to fit the interior hull to spread the load out. The area I am repairing is bigger than just the pulling eye. I repaired it badly 20 years ago and move the eye up 4 inches. Now there are two almost adjacent 3" holes to be backed up. I'll try to do a decent job on the video even if I have a failure. I did a few anecdotal tests just gluing and stressing some scrap HDPE and low density " blown " also. I was amazed at the holding power. as an IT guy you can appreciate while I am trying to complete paying jobs for my customers I am also building a virgin 10gig network for a NAS server I am building for my video, laser scanning and photogrammetry work I do. Man, it is a lot more time consuming than I thought when I was buying all the parts.

[@thePods]

Great test and recommendations - thank you so much. If you ever do a second video, I'd love to see a comparison of the loctite to the west system 655-8 G/flex

[@motleypixel]

Well, it's not really an apples to apples comparison. The G-Flex is not a low surface energy plastic bonder. It's great on fiberglass, wood, metal and offers what appears to be good flex/expansion. Just know, there's not much out there that bonds to HDPE, reason why gasoline cans are made of HDPE.

[@thePods]

@@motleypixel thanks for that clarification

[@McgarickWAstate]

Wow, on the 5200 not sticking! The stuff is awesome though.. I'm looking to get a plastic kayak and put some home brew keel guards in it, and I'm glad I looked in 5200 working or not.. Thanks for the test.

[@motleypixel]

5200 is phenomenal on fiberglass, wood and metal

[@pingpong808]

Did you cut up your Revo 13? I hope not lol. Anyways, have you heard of West Systems G-Flex 655 epoxy? I use it with success on hdpe, and so far been happy with it, although I haven’t done any stress tests. I’m actually going to be using it to do the drive cam column reinforcement with the pvc clam, and will prep surface with acetone, then denatured alcohol and then flame treat. Crossing fingers.

[@motleypixel]

Ha, no didn't cut up my Revo, when I met a guy to buy a Hobie kit sail he gave me a big chunk of the same color HDPE from a Hobie that was cut-up by ACK. Funny you mention West Systems G-Flex 655 because my local West Marine in Austin, TX was curious when I asked them if they sold any polyolefin binders for low surface energy plastics. Let's just say he (manager) was interested in hearing more. He then went on to rave about G-Flex and how it worked wonders and of course the cost sort of shows. I said to him, probably in the exact words "take a scrap hdpe cutting board and cut it into test pieces and glue them together with 655 with slight clamping pressure and let me come in and try to pull them apart". I'll do the same with Loctite 3035. That's exactly what he did...he took my number and called me back in a week. I brought just one test piece of spare cutting board (mine was black, actual HDPE 1/2" black of stock left over from a project. He had several pieces and let's just say he was blown away. Any regular 2 part non-polyolefin adhesive will NOT bond low surface energy HDPE plastic. I would give some scraps a try first. What's the cost difference between G-Flex and Loctite 3035? A tube of 3035, plenty for clam-shell repair of PVC for Hobie MD cam column repairs runs about $60. You'll use about 3/4 of the tube. Although, I can see some using all of it just because of the "bigger of glob the better the job" concept :)

[@pingpong808]

@@motleypixel That’s a relief lol! Yeah, I noticed while gluing Gflex test pieces that prep is very important, otherwise adhesion is hit or miss. My go to prep process now is to alcohol wipe, wire brush to scuff, then flame treat, but a longer flame application to the point of melting seems required.

[@cdgarrett1]

I wanted to paint some labels on the sides of my kayak and heard paint doesn’t stick so I thought maybe colored silicone would stick better and have a raised letter effect.

[@motleypixel]

It's work, just don't expect it to stick for long. The factory ones, like in Hobie, are actually thermally fused PE decals.

[@jraboldatx420]

Hello sir! I've been researching this topic a little and trying to decide what I'm gonna use to fix me and the wife's kayak. I had them strapped on my bed, and the front strap came loose, and they drug the road a bit before I could get stopped. Both of them got the same hole in the tail portion wich is a good flat area. I already ordered a piece of 12"x12"x1" thick piece of High Density polyethylene and my plan is to make a patch plug to fill the hole, and also build the area that got eaten away. I see you recommend the Loctite AA 3035. My plan is to make the patch plug and then glue it, then let it cure for a for days or a week, then grind and sand to the original shape. Do you think that Loctite will do the trick?

[@motleypixel]

for something like that I would thermal weld several layers of HDPE and omit using the 3035 adhesive. The adhesive is really for unique situations, say for instance you have a situation where a brass female threaded insert fails or starts spinning freely. You'd want to screw in a bolt, heat the bolt to the point the brass insert heats up and then pull out the insert. Then put the insert back in with 3035 to hold fast. There are other situations that are conducive to using 3035 vs. thermal welding, but for the most part large hull crack/hole repairs should be thermally welded with augmented HDPE, preferably same color. Good luck.

[@knightourage7441]

THANK YOU for honest test why nobody is going after these fraud manufacturers? sitting here looking for a real glue and one is worse than the other

[@wash713]

Having a hard time finding the loctite where did you purchase

[@motleypixel]

Haven't purchased in over a year, but recall Amazon and ebay.

[@johnwedgeworth4908]

Have you ever tried using a superglue/graphite mixture to try and bond to hdpe?

[@motleypixel]

No but I have tried all types of superglue by itself w/o any success. Does the graphite produce some chemical bond or is it only mechanical? If mechanical I'm very skeptical. Thanks for the reply.

[@johnwedgeworth4908]

@@motleypixel I believe it is a chemical bond. Search on KZbin “superglue graphite” and a video pops up where a screw is attached to a blue bottle cap, which I believe it to be made of hdpe, using this combination. The screw is then hammered until it is bent 90 degrees without it breaking away from the bottle cap.

[@motleypixel]

@@johnwedgeworth4908 ah that one, yes and it's BOGUS, tried it, but it's with baking soda, not graphite.

[@johnwedgeworth4908]

@@motleypixel kzbin.info/www/bejne/qmi8eGxmgaueg68

[@motleypixel]

@@johnwedgeworth4908 interesting, first time seeing this one. Notice he did have to add sodium bi-carbonate (aka baking soda)? Also, no need to sand down pencil core, that's actually not 100% graphite anyway, I would just buy dry graphite lock lube tubes for ease of use. Still though, even though I haven't tested either, I don't buy it one ounce, I would bet $100 USD that the screw test would not bend.

[@timl9495]

So in conclusion I don't see anything that worked.

[@motleypixel]

3:30 Loctite AA 3035 sticks; in fact, it deforms the HDPE when trying to pull two pieces way after a bond with this adhesive.

[@Itspronouncednuclear]

Thank you!@@motleypixel