Contact Cement for roadbed

[Anonymous]

I used contact cement, the stuff you use to fasten countertop laminate to plywood, to fasten my cork roadbed to the 3/4 MDF I am using for benchwork. It held fine for a week, until we got record breaking heat early this week. I went ot the garage tonight to check on it, and ALL of my curves have loosened and the cord is off.

Anyone have fix for this, or do I need to just put another coat of cement on roadbed and wood, and fasten it back down?

[bogp40]

The trouble with contact cement , is both sides need to have the same even coat and have to both be dry to tack. Some materials will absorb the glue and not leave enough surface residue for bond. Many times in laminating formica tops, I would have to coat a porous plywood first and let dry. Then recoat and coat the fomica. An older cabinet builder showed me how to tell when contact surfaces are ready- use a piece of brown paper bag and press into the glue, when it barely sticks w/ heavy thumb pressure the surface is ready. Of coarse a bond on large sheet stock for a counter top is cricical to get the entire area ready for tack as compared to our use for roadbed. I believe the cork or the MDF sucked up the glue and didn't leave enough for a bond. A contact cemented joint done properly is extremely strong. Try to reglue, but let the surfaces dry before making contact. I persomally wood have used capenters glue and weighted the cork as it dried. The contact cement is too quick and doesn't allow for any adjustments.
Bob K.

[karle]

Try Aileen's Tacky Glue, available in craft stores, to glue down cork roadbed. It sets fast enough to hold the cork in a curved shape without staples or other temporary means to hold in place, but not so fast to prevent readjustment, and drys in a couple hours And it's quite inexpensive. I use it exclusivley now for cork to plywood, though have not tried it on MDF, but am pretty sure it will work just as well. The other benefit is you can pretty easily scrape off the cork and glue later if you want to make changes later.