Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/09/29/how-to-figure-out-exactly-what.html
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I’ve written a better, more accurate bot.
Just whisper the two items you wish to join into your computer screen, and then click the following blurry area to have the correct joining material for those two items be revealed:
Duct tape
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What about gluing yourself to yourself?
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This is a great tool, though they seem to lack foam and/or craft foam, two things I plan to work with soon.
Though with the foam I know rubber cement actually works very well.
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With foam, I’ve also had luck with spray mount, especially Super 77, which will stick just about anything to anything.
I find it strangely reassuring that the site seems unchanged since it was first mentioned here over 15 years ago.
Let’s hope there haven’t been any major changes in adhesive technology since then.
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Had a Loctite brochure that went into wonderful detail about adhesive bonds and compatibility. Want to bond PEI? PTFE? PETG? And so on. Here are the adhesives, their relative strengths, operating environments, and proper surface treatments.
It was written like some sort of Time Life book with lots of pretty pictures, descriptions organized by substrate and by adhesive type. The details on plastics made it worth it as a plastics reference guide all by itself.
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Seems to lack the specifics I need, such as advice on how to repair specific plastics, such as abs. Just saying “plastic” is way too vague. (I wound up using a marine epoxy that is specifcally designated as for use on abs - not just any epoxy. The solvent abs glue I tried first wasn’t satisfactory, but, theoretically, should have been perfect.)
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Don’t laugh. One early use of super glue was to stop hemorrhage, tested back in Viet Nam war days. If you have a big bleeding mess, just spray it with super glue. Apparently it’s now approved for repairing skin injuries. There’s also an albumin based glue for cardiovascular uses.
Medical grade glue for sutures started life as something pretty close to superglue. I’ve had friends that cut themselves pretty badly and patched themselves up with it rather than having to make the drive to the hospital and get stitches. Not sure i would want to do that but if it works then why not.
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Super glue, or to be precise, 2-octyl cyanoacrylate or n-butyl cyanoacrylate. I dunno about brand names - they must’ve gone generic by now.
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I thought BB had already done that:
Sugru
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Yeah, I don’t think I’d want to either. Some of the degradation products are toxic, like formaldehyde, IIRC.
There is that whole “wounds get infected if you don’t clean them before closing them up with glue” thing. But, when I cut my finger the night of a formal ball (really), I wasn’t looking forward to dancing with a bandaged finger, possibly still bleeding just a bit. (Eww). My local drugstore had OTC wound glue on swabs, and it worked perfectly. No bandage needed, and nobody the wiser at the ball. I’ve not been able to find the same product since then, though…
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I done that. 
Spoilered for Ewwww…
Bone-deep scalpel gash to the finger. Big, flappy chunk of flesh dangling around and dripping. Splash of isopropyl to clean it, dab of superglue to hold it back in place.Hurt like hell, but healed great.
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Came here to say the same thing. PVC cement is useless for ABS and vice versa. How do you cement Bakelite?
‘Gluing’ a plastic to another plastic, as the page says, requires knowledge of what kind of plastics are involved. Saying ‘just use 5-minute epoxy’ isn’t worth the link-to.
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That’s why the 2-octyl and n-butyl variations were developed.
Real Bakelite is sawdust in a phenolic resin, so resin epoxies (and even wood glues) should work OK, depending on the particular Bakelite compound. However, you don’t really want to glue Bakelite because it is a collectible product and that diminishes the value.
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Uh, because it might be a collectible product. But then again, I’m not a hipster, so I might still be able to recognize some stuff as being crap. ;->
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