New London taxis glued together.

[Michael Chare]

There was an interesting program about making London taxis on Channel 4
on Saturday night.
The main taxi body is made up from various bits of aluminium which are
glued together. The glue has to be baked to make in harden. It was
possible to wait a few days after the glue was applied before it had tom
be baked.
There was another part of the vehicle where glue was used, but in that
case the glue cured much more quickly.
I did wonder if the glues could be purchased for domestic use?

[T i m]

A garage owning friend has a two part glue that is considered acceptable for repair patches on MOT work.
I'm not sure if there are any restrictions on where such repairs can be made?
I think chemical bonding has been fairly common on ally things for many years?
I wonder if it affects insurance premiums (if you have a car that is)?
Cheers, T i m

[tabbypurr]

epoxy I presume.
NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its called araldite
Doesn't really set unless heat is used.

[Andy Burns]

Yes it's an epoxy, I think the program mentioned 1-part, rather than 2-part

[soup]

Baked in a 'giant' oven that perhaps was pressurised ?

People tend not to have autoclaves in the house so I wouldn't thinh there was much call for it domestically.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

It has to have some kind of etching substance in it or it would simply adhere to the oxide and it would tend to fall to bits surely? So why use metal at all then? Brian

[Andy Burns]

Ask formula1 how cheap their composite carbon fibre chassis are?

[polygonum_on_google]

You can buy aerolite - which (more or less) was used for Mosquitoes. (Yes, I know they were primarily wood not aluminium.) I suspect that was a very demanding role.

[alan_m]

Many processes use a large plastic bag and use a vacuum to force the component pieces together

[tim...]

one of the previous episodes showed that their cars were glued too
can't recall which manufacturer

[Andy Burns]

Volvo? Lotus? ... both same owner.

[Scott]

Maybe I was too dismissive when my neighbour suggested gluing the fence instead of getting it welded.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

After serious thinking tim... wrote :

Lotus?

[polygonum_on_google]

No idea about the availability of the specific products mentioned, but this 3M document is quite interesting:

[newshound]

A fair time ago the "frame" of an MPV (Espace?) was spot welded and then hot dip galvanized. I read somewhere that this made it about three times stiffer.

[Paul]

There's a big difference between factory cleanliness and field prep for gluing. It's why we have the perception that "glue sucks". In a factory, they work on their prep procedures until they get it right.
And this is why you see suggestions to "glue and screw". Because everyone knows, long term, how much good the glue is in a DIY environment. The screw is there to take the stress the glue won't eventually be able to handle.
Glue has to be protected from UV light, so you would expect the painting procedure to be just as important. It's a package deal. With the painting being just as important as the gluing.
The materials have to be accelerated life tested, thermal cycled, to help prove they're robust. And this is the cab being field tested. That's from an article April 2017. The paint job is standard practice for camouflaging prototypes.

Paul

[Scott]

On Mon, 27 Jul 2020 07:17:56 -0400, Paul wrote:

Just as well I employed a welder then :-)

[tabbypurr]

we use ovens. Domestic epoxy is pretty popular.
NT

[alan_m]

There was a recent programme on the building of a modern Morgan. Ali clued to a wooden frame.