fixing to steel withotu drilling a hole

All of them really to some degree. It's one thing epoxy is good at is good surface area metal-metal joins.

How much load will the joint take?

But how are you going to make a dry bond?

Thanks,

Not much weight, just a some wood paneling (fixed to battens screwed to brackets bonded to the steel hull).

This is for inside the boat, so it should be dry as a bone (unless something very bad has happened!).

Robert

Ah - I see - under the waterline *inside* For some reason I though it was literally under the water outside.

In that case, any reasonable epoxy with or without filler should do the job, eg araldite, isopon etc.

Another option is TheWorks which forms an elastic bond - no where near as strong but over a large area, still very strong and good if anything needs to flex.

A 3rd option for this application my be PU foaming adhesive?

Or one of the no more nails / sticks like s*it type products, as long as you have enough area and get the steel reasonably clean to start.

FWIW there's no real reason a competent welder should not be able to weld an attachment. TIG or MMA would probably be best. Oil rigs and pipelines are regularly welded on the wet side!

If its light weight some rare earth magnets, you get several tens of newtons from some of them.

interesting idea, but maybe the boat would then stick to the steel piling of my mooring and I'd not be able to move it ever again :-)

Robert

Aradite sounds straightforward. I'll probably go for that. I could use Dennis's idea of rare-earth magnets to hold the bracket in place while it glues.

Fixing foam. The stuff that comes in aerosol cans. Must be oil free surfaces. Use it to stick the panels direct? They will need to be held in position 'til the stuff goes off.

Robert,

You say no welding, but I have a device that would be ideal for your dilemma - a stud welder. Not to be confused with the little ones used on dent removal in bodywork, this one will weld a stud of up to 8 mm diameter securely to a steel plate without affecting the other side. It charges a bank of capacitors up to a defined voltage then discharges them between the parent metal and the stud. The stud has a little pip on the end to shape the flow, and a spring firmly presses the stud with it's tiny pool of molten metal into the steel forming a very secure fixing. It is possible to make fixings without damaging paint on the other side.

They can be hired

Andrew

Worse than that, the boat would be constantly trying to align itself north-south and become very difficult to steer.

Cheers

ROFL!

Just install a degaussing coil.

Why bother with the brackets? Glue profiled battens to the hull to give the plane for the paneling . Much larger surface area to take the load.

very interesting,

thanks

Robert

yes, that would work but I want to be able to remove the panels from time to time. R

And when you turn it on, the interior panels fall off?

Thomas Prufer

And would attract all the shopping trolleys and other assorted ferrous scrap lurking at t' bottom of t' cut.

Although with the price of scrap these days that might be quite lucrative.

Owain

to brackets bonded to the steel hull).

mething very bad has happened!).

Dennis's idea of rare-earth magnets to hold the bracket in place while it g lues.

So, I did the job with "Araldite steel" and it did not stick properly; I pu lled the brackets off easily by hand. I wonder if anyone can tell suggest what I did wrong.

I glued the three new galvanised steel brackets on to the inside of the ste el hull of my narrowboat. I used a wire brush in an electric drill to scrap e off the paint on the hull. I found smooth shiny steel (no rust). I glu ed onto this surface and held the brackets in place with big magnets and le ft them for a week to cure.

When I retured a week later I found that the brackets all came off with a s light pull. They all failed at the hull/glue interface.

Could it be that there was grease oil left on the surface? Or is it that I should have roughened up the surface, with a grinder for example?

How would you degrease? Detergent and water?

many thanks for any guidance offered.

Robert

In message , RobertL writes

I would use acetone, but that's because I've got a big can of it. I have been told that car brake cleaner is good for degreasing.

I wonder whether the problem is condensation on the inside of the hull.

Here, I use SP Systems or West epoxy with various fillers, but milled wood fibres (or sawdust) usually work well.

This thread has me confused. Turnpike hasn't downloaded it all, but Pan has. Both are aimed at Eternal September. Weird.