Perspex adhesive

You should be able to get some suitable adhesive from your local sign shop.

Ask your local pharmacist for help. They may be able to get you a small bottle. You do have to sign a legal document for it now-a-days, though, to prevent you from using such chemicals in an illegal manner. But you should be able to get it from the friendly chemists shop.

There's a model shop near me (Stoneleigh, Surrey) which sells small bottles of plastic weld fluid, which sticks many types including Perspex. You position the two bits you want to join together, and apply this very thin liquid to the join so that it wicks into the gap. It works well, and presumably is available in other parts of the country. It says it contains Methyl Chloride. I didn't have to sign anything.

Dave W

ha, no. Its diy makable but I dont remember how. And not a great choice. Can you really not find acetone?

NT

BigWallop has brought this to us :

Needing to solve a similar problem myself, I attempted to obtain some. The chemists do not seem to stock it all and would have to get it in specially and it is not available without prescription.

So I then looked for a alternatives and found

Thanks for that, have ordered some. Cheers Don

AFAIA, Acetone is not a solvent for Methyl Methacrylate (perspex, acrylic, plexiglas, etc) Don

I'm pretty sure it is.

NT

I have found Cyanoacrylate works well with perspex. It appears to solvent weld it, as well as polymerising. With care, you can bond two transparent pieces together with the bond being invisible when you look through it, and if you pull it apart, the perspex breaks before the bond separates.

No, I don't think it is.

Not sure that methyl chloride is either, or methyly ethyl ketone..or Xylene..

These all work with ABS, styrene and PVC though. I THINK.

Acetone dissolves super glue..one of the few things that does.

I was amazed at your claim. I haven't any superglue in the house, but do have a bottle of Loctite SuperGlue3 remover dated 1994. I tried this and it worked as you describe after an hour or so!

Dave W

For completeness, here is what's on the label:

EMA Plastic Weld For styrene, butyrate, ABS, acrylic, Perspex. EMA Model Supplies Ltd. Unit 2, Shepperton Business Park Govett Ave. Shepperton TW17 8BA (01932) 228 228

Dave W

I guess the SuperGlue3 remover is just acetone. As perspex dissolves in acetone, this is probably simply a solvent weld you are producing.

Cyanoacrylate polymerises into an acrylic resin, not dissimilar to perspex, so the mechanism of the bond is different with Cyanoacrylate. (Having read up some more, I suspect I was wrong about Cyanoacrylate solvent welding perspex, as it's not in a solvent. It forms a similar acrylic polymer to perspex, and most likely is that the polymer directly bonds to the perspex polymer surface.)