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< Home < Tips Area < Glues < Lexan I'm in the process of building a beveler, and I'm thinking about building a dust collector cage around the strip carriage and the router hole. For those of you that have used Lexan, what adhesive would you recommend to glue the cage together? It'll be Lexan to Lexan. (Mark Wendt) There are special adhesives for Lexan, a polycarbonate. For polyacrylates, Plexiglas, et al, you can use methylene chloride. One such adhesive for polycarbonates is IPS Weld-on #3. I've used this in the past. The stuff is as thin as water, and you apply it with a needle-applicator bottle. Don’t polish the edges to be joined, only sand them smooth. Butt everything together, and allow the adhesive to flow down the joint via capillary action. You may not get it right the first time, so practice on some scrap pieces. Also, while more bulletproof, literally, than acrylics, the polycarbonates are also less scratch resistant. You can probably find anything you need from places like Cadillac Plastics, or Cope Plastics. (Martin-Darrell) I do not know about the glue for Lexan, but I did not go to any great extent to build by "dust collector." Someone else on the list recommended getting a reducer for a shop vac hose and duct taping it to the exit side of the beveler. This is what I did and it worked fine. (Bill Bixler) Cadillac Plastics makes and sells two cements for acrylics. However, the SC-125 cement will also weld any plastic material that I have encountered. Use a very fine needle hypo to weld along the seams. They sell it in a pint, quart or gallon can. (Jerry Young) I used 5 minute epoxy and it did the job. However, if you are looking for a more professional look, I would use the ones made for Lexan that were mentioned by others on the list. Mine looks a little blobby. I also installed a vacuum hose attachment with small bolts and it has worked great. (Don Bugg) I used Lexan, and found this cyanoacrylate glue that was formulated specifically for Lexan and other plastics. Worked great, got it at the local hobby shop. They use it all the time on the RC car bodies, which are made of Lexan. Little bottle of Superglue, cost me almost $10... But, it works great! (Mark Wendt) I am building a dust collection box out of Lexan for a beveler, and need an adhesive. IPS Weld-on products are recommended, but are not available locally which means spending approximately $15.00 to glue a few parts. Does anyone know of another type of adhesive that would work with polycarbonates? Thanks. (Ron Delesky) I would venture a guess that PVC adhesives might work. Is that Lexan going to build up static electricity in a dust collection box? (Harry Boyd) PVC glues don't work very well with Lexan. Tried it before and it doesn't hold very well. he needs either the IPS type adhesives he mentioned or the super glue that works with Lexan and other plastics. I used the super glue on the dust box on my beveler and its holding up well after over 5 years of use. (Mark Wendt) The static electricity concern is a very real one...you could have a flash resulting in fire or explosion (that's how grain silos often explode). You might want to rethink your material as polycarbonate does hold static electricity and you can't effectively ground it. If you want to use a plastic, it'd have to be an ESD safe plastic (expensive) or just use metal. (George Bourke) There's a certain kind of super glue that works with plastics. Check your local hobby shop, they carry it for the guys that run RC cars and trucks and such and use it to repair the lexan bodies on their vehicles when they crack them up. (Mark Wendt) I used Acetone on mine and it is still going after 5+ years. I may have used Plexiglas but I think it was Lexan. (Gordon Koppin) |