Making a fashion statement

You probably already know that products from Araldite can be found in almost all areas of life. But it may come as a bit of a surprise to you that products made of our advanced materials can also enhance your personal glamor. Working closely with Swarovski, the Austria-based manufacturer of crystal jewelry, Huntsman has again demonstrated the versatility of its Araldite® 2000 PLUS adhesives range, this time in a highly decorative application.

Araldite 2011 high performance adhesive is now being used in the Enlightened™-Swarovski Elements product brand, to enhance the bonding of marcasite stones into a variety of pieces—including rings, earrings, brooches, necklaces and cufflinks. Most of Swarovski's customers now choose Araldite 2011 two component epoxy paste as their preferred adhesive for bonding marcasite stones, as it gives the jewelry an enhanced sparkle. These jewelers set a stunning total of around 500 million marcasite stones each year, worldwide.

Swarovski provides genuine marcasite stones — cut from Pyrite — for their customers, to produce many types of jewelry. By using Araldite 2011, they can even bond stones in the 1-2mm size range. Bonding with Araldite means there are no visible settings on the finished pieces — a feature not possible with traditional setting methods that use prongs and bezels.

We get stuck into the Love Truck

The problem involved a painted steel substrate, hand placed glass/ceramic tiles, substrate flexing and widely varying vibration over extended periods in outdoor conditions – in short a Tiki Love Truck! An unusual project even for us, but nonetheless as it proved, well within the capabilities of the adhere IRS 2125 Flexible Epoxy Adhesive.

The project was an Art Car – defined by Michael Trainer, Curator of Art Cars 2007 as “A drivable installation – any vehicle which has been re-imagined, re-styled, re-modeled, or completely metamorphosed by an artist into a transport of delight.” In this case it was conceived by Baroness von Reichardt as a Tiki Love Truck based around the tiki symbology of a large carved talisman in humanoid form, common to Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean. The Tiki Love Truck is a magical mosaic/ceramic adorned automobile, driven by two lovely hula girls who give out messages of love and peace as they drive by.

The base vehicle was a standard Nissan diesel pick-up truck to be covered in glass tile mosaics and ceramic Polynesian cultural images for the purpose of competing in art car parades – a major feature of the USA parade scene – but first revealed in the UK in Manchester 2007, where the Tiki Love Truck won the Makeover class alongside such vehicles as Crazy Golf – a VW Golf in grass effect with golfing participants, Bog Standard motorised bath tub, toilet and wash basin, Minnie 7 patchwork fabric covered Mini and Car Jack – a car removal robot wheeling away a Volvo like a wheelbarrow!

The Baroness googled "adhesives" and discussed the project with our technical advisors who suggested the adhere IRS 2125 Flexible Epoxy Adhesive – rapidly earning a reputation as a "stick-most-things-to-most-other-things" kind of adhesive in high performance specialist areas. It is a black epoxy resin system with a combination of flexibility and high adhesion strength on materials such as metal, glass, rubber and many plastics, including cable insulations and connector backshells at temperature up to 150°C. Originally developed for cable harnesses, fixing cables into connectors, IRS 2125 often solves problems where other adhesives are not suitable, offering relative flexibility and high strength adhesion for high technology bonding, sealing and insulating applications.

This suggestion proved to be a complete success over the 5 hours a day, 7 day installation and subsequently. Explains the Baroness, “As an artist I find the process of mosaic very therapeutic, hence the name of our organisation – the Treatment Rooms – and this adhesive certainly facilitated that process. It is just incredible – nice to use because you don’t have to mix it and with a convenient setting time. The tiles have been solid as a rock ever since. We have used the Love Truck for charity activities and will be taking it to Blackpool soon and then to Gateshead on New Years Eve.”

adhere IRS 2125 is flexible by epoxy standards, can seal to IP68 (continuous immersion) and it has a long shelf life (up to 18 months) and a pot life of 90 minutes at 23°C. Combined with excellent resistance to solvents such as de-icing fluid, petrol, oil and hydraulic fluid it really does what an adhesive should do – it produces tough bonds that withstand vibration and flexes sufficiently for many electronics, electrical and structural bonding applications.

This two-part system has a simple 1:1 mix ratio and is supplied in an easy to use side-by-side double syringe cartridge, complete with static mixing nozzles.

Pushing the boat out

An aluminium speedboat, built by the Dutch company Silvestris Haute Motive Concepts, is making use of structural bonding technology from Huntsman Advanced Materials. Martin de Bruijn, a designer at Silvestris, reveals that the design practices and lightweight materials used mean that the 23-foot boat weighs just 1500kg. The light weight is based on an aluminium space frame which forms the skeleton structure of the boat. It is riveted and bonded to the aluminium hull with Araldite 2015, an epoxy adhesive paste which cures at room temperature.

“When we began the project we were confident that the advantages of using adhesives in automotive engineering would transfer to a marine application”, says Martin de Bruijn. “It soon became apparent that the Araldite adhesives were the only products available that guaranteed strength, improved performance, and increased the durability of the design.”

Getting the gas out

Removing air bubbles from materials like epoxies and inks which you mix up yourself can be an irritation. Often some form of vacuum chamber is used to degas the mixture - it is time consuming and not easy!

One of the advantages of our Thinky ARE-250 Mixer is that it does not put air into the material whilst mixing - and then a degassing stage can remove what's left (down to micron levels). The planetary action mixes quickly and completely. The degassing mode is more effective than a simple centrifuge.

An epoxy resin, approximately 250,000cps
Before processing Countless microscopic air bubbles exist (60x magnified)
After 3 minutes "Mixing Mode" Only a few size 15μm air bubbles are visible
After 2.5 minutes "Degassing Mode" No air bubbles are visible under 60x microscope

Are you troubled with gas?