Thread: Bonding aluminum with epoxy...

Just so I am 100% clear we are not wrapping our steel A arms in CF for bling (like lotus did at the begining of this f1 season)... these are pure cf tubes bonded to machined AL balljoint captures.

"(like lotus did at the begining of this f1 season)"

Good for you, I was wondering if it was trolling for some sponsorship money!

An "Acme supercarbon" decal, and some cash from their marketing dept!

3M 8115 panel bonding adhesive might be a good option. It is designed for automotive repair, so it should be available through automotive parts stores. For mass application, it uses a special dispensing gun and disposable mix tubes. For small work, you can just mix it by hand. It doesn't appear to be super sensitive to that.

-Jim

Worked composites for years including working with large automotive organizations and one of my responsibilities was aluminum composite structures that were bonded with adhesive.

In a nutshell, you will need to e-coat the aluminum and bond together with something like a two part adhesive preferably heat activated curing. There are other bonding agents that will work, but not as well.

Bonding raw aluminum to each other will not offer the best bonding system because of the oxide. Ecoat provides the bond to the aluminum and the adhesive provides the bonding to the e-coat and plastic or aluminum to aluminum.

Let me know if you have any more questions as I would be happy to help!

Originally Posted by jamie76x

I used JB weld. Yes, JB weld. I have tried the lab metal, 3m, loctite products etc etc and seam to have no better results that stupid ol' JB weld. I drill 1/16th holes through the area of the joint the countersink the back side of the hole and alow the JB weld to fill the hole completely. Its kind of like a rivet. Then before its fully set i cut the access off with a razor blade. Once it dries, Its a very strong joint.

JB weld is a good product. I use it all the time. But, when I make something that has to meet a specification, or puts someone's life on the line, I use the other stuff.

Is it significantly better? No. Its like they say, "the last 5% of performance is 50% of the cost."

Originally Posted by countryboy1966

Worked composites for years including working with large automotive organizations and one of my responsibilities was aluminum composite structures that were bonded with adhesive.

In a nutshell, you will need to e-coat the aluminum and bond together with something like a two part adhesive preferably heat activated curing. There are other bonding agents that will work, but not as well.

Bonding raw aluminum to each other will not offer the best bonding system because of the oxide. Ecoat provides the bond to the aluminum and the adhesive provides the bonding to the e-coat and plastic or aluminum to aluminum.

Let me know if you have any more questions as I would be happy to help!

Interesting...so are you saying that the e-coat converts the oxide barrier on aluminum to something that allows adhesion of epoxy, or is an alternative to the various prep methods?