Bushwalk Australia

Can anyone advise me if there is a locally available glue I can get for bonding cuben seams.
I am making a tarp and need to reinforce tieouts and I guess I need to bond the edges where I double over the material.

I would prefer the ease of buying locally rather than ordering from the US.

From memory Simon from Tiergear has a local source of double sided tape for cuben on his website.
Tape is much easier to use.

Yep, still there.....http://www.tiergear.com.au/11/online-sh ... -tape-1163
Two sizes available, wide for the tie out areas & thin for the edge seams.

You can bond larger tie-out areas with contact adhesive. There are expensive waterproof options but iv'e used selleys spray adhesive and a 3m product. Used tape for the outer edge for convenience & piece of mind but even the selleys has held and is holding a few years on. Spray adhesive is surprisingly easy to use.

If to save some $ and you have a bit of time, and plan on more projects, i'd suggest doing some tests for yourself with adhesives. A month or so subject to stress in the weather should give a good indication of glue lifespan.

Thanks, that tape sounds good to me, less messy than glue I guess but probably more expensive.

I think the preferred adhesive is expensive and kind of a pain in the neck to use. Tape is super easy. The adhesive is somewhat lighter than tape. And it makes more sense when bonding larger areas. Otherwise tape is the way to go.

After taping a few Cuben projects I never wanted to sew again.

You can use urethane adhesives like Seamgrip to join Cuben. I don't think it's as strong as HySol, but for non-loading joins it works fine. I used it to connect and seal the "cone" top of my pyramid tent. Tape wouldn't have worked there.

hysol and some of the others mentioned on BPL are/were very expensive. I did the same with the tipi cone though used tape for the outer/lower edge & seam, concerned about waterproof quality of the adhesive. Some patches I tried initially slipped a fraction then have held since. After a week or so they were strong enough to tear the cuben laminate. Also found the spray adhesive would hold well a length of noseeum mesh between layers of cuben..

I think i'd also just use tape for a flat tarp, one-off.

Does that tape from Simon also work on coated polyester as strongly?
Using tape would make the job I have to do on the tent a lot easier

Moondog - I would say kind of. Mostly I tell people it doesn't as that is not it's intended purpose, but I have just used some on uncoated nylon and silicone coated polyester to form a rolled hem and it stuck but would require sewing to provide a more reliable bond, though the uncoated fabric is holding pretty well. It does create some rigidity in the seam though. It sticks best to laminates like Cuben and XPac fabrics, and plastics - I have also used it in my car to attach various things like the Land Rover badge below.

I'll give it a try as I cannot easily get this seam under the sewing machine

Moondog55 wrote:I'll give it a try as I cannot easily get this seam under the sewing machine

Just be aware of any build up on your needle as you stitch through the adhesive. You may have to wipe down your needle every now and then to remove any residue.

This will be a substitute for stitching, I will hand sew the two ends tho to stop the lifting of the edges.
If only Rays and BCF sold spare flys for their big tents