Adhesive bonding to electroless nickel

A. It can be tough to glue to EN as it is very smooth. A slightly used sandpaper, even a good one, will not abrade as well as a new one. A long time ago, we had a problem trying to mask a SS part. When it was baked at 400 °F for a half hour, the tape stuck very well. You might try it. You might try 320 and 280 wet and dry sandpaper to see if it might work better and establish a "QC" check for how well it is roughed up vs. failures.

A. Loctite makes an adhesive that bonds well to EN. Unfortunately I don't know the specific product.

A. Hi A. If there are bearings involved which are causing a misalignment, the adhesive would be pulled apart over time, starting at the edge of the disk, but if there is nothing forcing a misalignment, I don't understand what is causing this problem.

Over-the-counter epoxy [on eBay or Amazon] should work, but there are structural adhesives that hold airplanes together, which you can try. Follow the instructions, but generally you wipe the surfaces with acetone [on eBay or Amazon] before applying the adhesive. If you decide to try structural adhesives remember that you need to buy the applicator, not just the cartridge.

Luck & Regards,


Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. It is a question of surface energy and wettability and the problem is common. One solution is to expose the surfaces to a plasma for a few minutes just before gluing. Of course, the surfaces should be free of dust, grease, oil, etc,. before exposing to plasma. Two types plasmas can be used: 1. A low temperature plasma jet which may use gases like helium, argon etc. 2. A low pressure plasma in a vacuum chamber. Here low pressure air is used to generate a plasma. Such machines are commercially available. H R Prabhakara - Bangalore Karnataka India 3-M Structural Double-sided Tape on eBay or Amazon (affil links) A. For the low load application like your piece seems to be, you could try some structural adhesive double-sided tape, specifically 3-M VHB double sided tape ⇨ They use this stuff to join panels in the automotive industry so it will be well and truly good enough for your purposes. Additionally you may be able to contact the manufacturer about getting them to cut you some shapes that fit your application better than a strip does, they also make certain sized rounds as stocked items. The thing with adhesives, just like in plating, cleanliness is next to godliness, if the substrate is not clean expect problems with adhesion. Andrew Speer - Ballarat, Australia

Thanks, Prabhakara. Thanks, Andrew.

I didn't think of double-sided tape, didn't even realize it was available in structural adhesive grades. And now I see that it's even available in 80 mm disc shape which sounds perfect for A's 3-inch diameter plate.