What is everyone's preferred adhesive for pins?

I have a few jobs where I need to locate and bond a pin in cast iron. I'm curious what tolerances and what adhesives everyone prefers? Also, I have several jobs that involve the same with aluminum pins and base material, and I'm curious if the preferred adhesive changes depending on the material. It's been quite a while since I've done this kind of work, as I tried to avoid bonding, and I have a feeling things have changed since the last time I did this. Big thanks for everyone's time in advance

We bond pins (steel, brass) into aluminum, brass, and gold plated aluminum. Don't know any certain "formula", but it is a 2 part 5 minute epoxy. Note, these are just to hold in place, they are tiny with no forces on them in any direction.

Loctite 263 or equivalent permanent stud locker. Works just as well or better than any epoxy I have used, including several specifically for metal bonding but way easier to use. Gaps are supposed to be .001"-.004" but it works quite well with a slip fit too, just not quite as strong if you need that ultimate strength. I have used it for anything between adding metal to injection mold cavities to bonding military drone pitot tubes together. Damned handy stuff to have on hand.

Thanks for the great info. One of the jobs is a half nut for a lathe. I'm using an O1 rod precision ground to 0.750", I was going to ream the cast iron to .0750 and use a boring head for any adjustments for a good fit. The nut only has downward pressure on a tapped pin/cam style lockup. The large pin is simply a engagement guide with only alignment forces. I was going to drill/ream a blind hole to receive the larger pin and then run the tapped hole perpendicular through that pin to retain it. The other job is 7075 aluminum, relocating several detent holes that were improperly located. Since I can't weld 7075 the plan was to drill/ream/plug with adhesive, then re-drill in the proper location a few thou over. Little to no load on that hole.

DavidScott said:

Loctite 263 or equivalent permanent stud locker. Works just as well or better than any epoxy I have used, including several specifically for metal bonding but way easier to use. Gaps are supposed to be .001"-.004" but it works quite well with a slip fit too, just not quite as strong if you need that ultimate strength. I have used it for anything between adding metal to injection mold cavities to bonding military drone pitot tubes together. Damned handy stuff to have on hand.

Click to expand...

this , except I like medium thread locker
what is the diameter of the hole. press fit .000-.0003

If you never want it to come out use retaining compound loctite 620 it's very impressive I've used it to repair water cooled molds where the mold had corroded so bad the brass fittings shot out. I just drilled the waterway out to 1" then made a .995 OD bushing with the correct pipe thread in one end and glue it in with that stuff. Its pretty strong stuff.