Need glue that will stick

[Ulophot]

My window blackout covers are insulating board. the thick, light green foam kind, covered with blackout plastic sheeting on the inside. Around the edges, where the board meets the foam edge wrap-around (Frost King gray insulating foam), I have difficulty preventing the sheeting from peeling from the board. I have tried gel superglue, craft glue, Liquid Nails. None of these stays stuck to the plastic; it might as well be Teflon.

One of you will know what kind of glue I need, hopefully something of which I won't have to buy a large amount.

Thank you.

[Roger Thoms]

This is supposed to compatible with foam, might work for your application. https://www.gorillatough.com/product...pray-adhesive/

I should have a can in the garage and can test on some styrofoam if you like.

Roger

[Kevin Crisp]

A spray adhesive should work fine. The 3M variety usually works fine. Just use it like contact cement, wait until tacky then put the two materials together.

[Drew Wiley]

If your black sheeting is polyethylene, nothing will stick to it. Guess what kind of plastic containers glues are themselves packaged in, due to its inertness? No Gorilla glue, Super glue, or contact cement will bond it either. A simple test for bondability is to rub some acetone (not alcohol) on your plastic. If it dries without etching or attacking the plastic, glues won't work.

But if it's black velvet studio flocking with a vinyl backing, most "hot solvent" glues are going to attack it so aggressively that the bond might fail. A fast-setting adhesive caulking which is paint thinner cleanup rather than a hot solvent variety would be Lexel. It comes in both clear and white, and is sold in both caulking tubes and smaller squeeze tubes. It works with Styrofoam too.

I was in charge of the tech side of what was then the largest selection of glues and caulking of any retail dealer in the Western half of the US. There were big industrial adhesive dealers for highrise curtainwall construction and expansion joint sealants, or aerospace sealants, who carried more specialized varieties than we did, and held even bigger inventories; but in terms of walk-in, it's doubtful any other retail business in the country had a bigger selection at the time. We also had an industrial & military sales dept, so got familiar with a lot of options.

We were undoubtedly one of the very first places in the world to offer moisture-curing Gorilla glue to woodworkers, which was the only Gorilla product at the time. The samples were given to me personally by their representative, before they could be purchased anywhere. I was the guinea pig for testing all kinds of such things.

I had to resort to Lexel just two weeks ago to quickly glue down a number of asphalt roof shakes before the next severe wind and rain storm hit just eight hours later. Standard roofing products would have been too slow.

[malexand]

I use the foil backed pink insulation foam panels in the window of my darkroom. The foam is easy to cut, deforms easy to mold itself around minor bumps. The foil makes it 100% lightproof. It’s dirt cheap easy to find at any home center.
If you are taking them in and out I’d wrap the edge with foil tape.

[Drew Wiley]

Insulation foam can decompose and create dust if exposed to UV. For window usage, you do want any exposed ends covered.

[Ulophot]

Thanks, all. I'm going to guess the plastic is polyethylene, based on what what said above. Since I would like to stick with what I have, I'll have to see if I can create something that will act as a staple; I doubt this would hold in the foam, but maybe with some Liquid Nails. Alternately, some kind of strip to cover the edge areas from the face of the window frame. I'll chose other materials next time.

[Roger Thoms]

Philip, finally had a chance to investigate the Gorilla Spray Adhesive a little further. The can states that it is for foam, when you read the fine print it says not for styrofoam and to test it for other types of foam before use (it does melt styrofoam ). It also states that it’s not recommended for polyethylene, so of course I tried it. The only foam board I have in hand is styrofoam so I used a piece of cardboard for my test. I cut a small piece of plastic sheeting and cardboard roughly 4” x 8” and glued the plastic to the cardboard. I then cut the sample in half and after about 15 minutes pulled the plastic off the cardboard. It took a decent amount of force to remove the plastic and the glue itself separated leaving a layer of glue on both the polyethylene and the cardboard. Tomorrow evening I’ll try tearing the polyethylene off the other half of the sample, want to give it 24 hours to dry. I attached a photo of when I was about halfway through pulling the sample apart. I also did a quick and dirty test with a water based contact adhesive that I had on hand and it didn’t work nearly as well as the Gorilla. When I separated that sample some of the adhesive separated from the polyethylene sheeting and it was much easier to separate than the Gorilla Spray Adhesive. Now in all fairness to the water based adhesive, I didn’t have the proper rolling for applying it and it is also much slower to tack up than a solvent based product so I may not have let it dry long enough before adhering the polyethylene. I also used a piece of styrofoam and it doesn’t harm it at all. I might mess with the water based contact adhesive a little more but it doesn’t look to promising.

Roger

[Duolab123]

I use the foil backed pink insulation foam panels in the window of my darkroom. The foam is easy to cut, deforms easy to mold itself around minor bumps. The foil makes it 100% lightproof. It’s dirt cheap easy to find at any home center.
If you are taking them in and out I’d wrap the edge with foil tape.

This is the way to go. These are most polyurethane or something similar, 3M metal foil tape on cut edges. Foil helps to protect the foam board from the effects of hear and sun on the board. When aged In uv this foam can become quite friable and crumble.

Printing on polyethylene is a engineering marvel involving corona discharge (a little foggy here) have to prepare the surface to accept special ink.

[Ulophot]

I have had the insulation sheets in use for more than five years; so far they are doing fine. One window faces north and gets no direct sun; the other gets it only from late afternoon on. One has nearly an inch-thick gray "sponge foam" (the Frost King stuff) around the edges and has shown few issues with light leaks.The other has only about a 1/4-inch thick border. Sometime soon I will trim latter and install a new foam border, which may also help.

Someone above asked, implicitly, if I take them in and out. Yes. I had a different, permanent solution years ago, which was a big mistake. It's an old house with original windows. Moisture built up and mold grew. I put my new light blocks in only when using the darkroom. On the very cold winter days, moisture is likely to precipitate on the glass overnight and need wiping off.