On 02 Apr 2007, The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Timothy Murphy wrote:
I haven't been following this discussion,
but re the title, wasn't Araldite originally developed
for sticking together small jet planes?

IIRC, it was developed at Duxford, south of Cambridge (UK),
which I think was an air base at the time,
perhaps in the 1950s?


Used with high temperature bonding, epoxies make very fine
aluminium glues indeed. In fact there are thousands of different
formulations available for specific applications.

Araldite is just one, and its not really optimized for anything
apart from a decent shelf life.

Epoxies are substantially inferior to polyesters in a hobby/DIY
situation, their one advantage being that they are less irritating
and stiffer than polyesters.. However the addition of metal powder
and other fillers to polyester resins to make a typical 'liquid
metal' formulation solves the viscosity problem and the fact that
the reaction is catalytic means that the accurate mixing and
consistent stirring that is so importance with epoxies is no longer
an issue.

I use both a lot, and really epoxy is surpsringly tricky to use..it
MUST be mixed really throughly, or it never sets, its not that
strong, and a hint of grease or oxide anywhere and it simply tears
off.

The metal loaded polyesters (chemical metal) seem to degrease more
readily in themselves, always set with more or less the right
amount of hardener even when poorly mixed, and seem to adhere a bit
better to olefin plastics,

Whilst epoxies, correctly used under industrial control are
undoubtedly superior, used under indifferent circumstances the
polyesters are far more reliable.


Very interesting post. Useful too. Thank you.