No, this is not a nomination for oxymoron of the week.
I’m usually way behind the beat when it comes to technological advances (eg I ‘discovered’ dyneema after it had been in chandleries for about 10 years), but this time I believe I’m up there with this one. If not, please feel free to smile politely behind your hands while saying, ‘Nice one, Michael’ in soothing tones.
Until very recently PTFE, polyethylene, polypropylene and similar ‘plastics’ were virtually unstickable with available glues, including cyanoacrylates (‘superglues’) and, of course, epoxies. No longer: the problem has been cracked. I believe several companies, including Loctite, now produce the means by which these difficult substances can be stuck to each other or to most other things. That’s quite something, especially for PTFE which is, by definition, non-stick.
I have glued strips of thin PTFE sheet to polyethylene (I think) webbing, so that in situations where they rub against the mast on my boat (this is deliberate - they are the 3 batten barrels and the boom lift: see the article on my junk rig in the Library for further enlightenment), they do not produce a noise like a cow with a severe ache in at least one of its several stomachs. This wasn't happening all the time, but when rigging the boat, or in light winds when the sail swung in a swell, or when I was anchored up for a mid-cruise zizz, having a virtual ailing bovine aboard a 12 foot dinghy was a bit tiresome. No more! Peace, perfect peace!
I used something called Technicqll (don’t ask me how to pronounce that) X935 adhesive, on sale on eBay, because it seemed relatively cheap (£7.65 but see below). It comes from Poland, and ALL the writing on the pack is in Polish, although quite adequate instructions in reasonable English are available at the point of sale. You get a very small bottle of ‘Primer’, and an equally small tube of glue which smells and behaves like bog-standard superglue. The Primer is clearly the magic ingredient here: it is a low-viscosity, volatile liquid with very little smell. It’s simple to use. You degrease both surfaces; then paint on the Primer (tiny brush provided), giving any rough or absorbent surfaces several coats. There is no visible effect. After 30 seconds, you apply glue to one surface and press the two firmly together. The bond appears to be very strong. It’s obviously worth taking extra care round the edges.
I bonded a total of 22 sq ins of PTFE (that’s a small area) to webbing and had precious little Primer or glue left. So it did the job for me, but wasn’t exactly cheap. You’re essentially paying for the primer, with which I’m sure normal cheapish superglue would work. Whether the Loctite version, apparently more expensive, would work out cheaper, for a bigger job for example, I don’t know.
I’ll try to remember to make a progress report on durability in a while, and hope my efforts don’t start un-peeling! They don’t look as though they will.
