Question
What kind of glue is best to attach thin paperbacked veneer to glass? I was thinking silicone. What do you guys think?
Forum Responses
(Adhesives Forum)
From contributor A:
I'd use polyurethane construction adhesive. Spread it out with an old fine-tooth backsaw blade used like a trowel. It sticks to everything except poly sheet-like vapor barrier or garbage bags. It does cure in a vacuum bag. My secret is out now for sure.
The key is to get the silicone to cure without locking it in and preventing drying. This is hard to do when it’s entrapped. I've successfully bonded ink-jet printed photos onto glass using silicone, as I knew that the silicone's solvent, acetic acid, would evaporate through the paper.
Veneer will do the same, but may not lay flat after you've rolled it on and clamped. You'll need a honeycombed clamping caul to allow drying while under clamp pressure. I almost guarantee this will work. You may need to thin the silicone with acetic acid (stop bath at photographic supply store) to get it to squeeze out better. You can roll the silicone or better yet, put it though a pinch roller. I'm biased towards silicone because it bonds to glass very well. PURS are not quite as good, but close. Do a test first. Epoxy does not work on glass - don't even waste your time, unless you use the special epoxies used to bond rear view mirrors to windshields.
Commercially available two part and UV glass laminating resins probably won't work due to oxygen in the wood inhibiting cure. UV glass glue, however, might work. These are different from UV laminating resins.
Loctite 352, found in McMaster Carr catalog, might work. I've glued small sections of plywood to glass using 352. It needs an artificial UV lamp to cure fast, or bright sunlight will also do the trick.
Also, I forgot to mention that paperbacked veneer will entrap the solvents in the silicone and it won't cure. Use raw veneer so that the acetic acid can escape through the pores. Finishing will be difficult, of course. You may need to seal with shellac as a first coat.
My first approach is still to bond to the glass, and use the glass as the viewing surface. Rather than a honeycombed clamping caul, a simple kerf-grooved panel would be fine.
I can also get a slightly thicker veneer without a paper back, more like a thin piece of plywood. I liked the thin paperbacked at first, but the thicker veneer, stained and clear lacquered and attached to the glass, might work better. If I lacquered it after the silicone set, would any residual affect the NGR stain or topcoat? What about using a dab of silicone at the corners and a few in the middle and washing the backside with silicone? Could I use a clip or some thin adhesive tape?
