Gorilla Glue and clamping

Original gorilla glue expands as it sets. It’s designed to fill gaps in ill fitting connections. Dries a bit like a hard foam. You have to clamp it. Its not a very good general purpose glue.

Gorilla super glue is pretty decent stuff if you need super glue though. Pretty thick so it stays put and has a long enough working time to get things where you want them. 

Rich

I do not believe the parts must be clamped.  Several years ago I glued a 4.5 foot tall Spanish jar that blew over in a hurricane and broke into a dozen parts.  I just watered the parts and applied the glue and set them together.  It has held for years.  The glue foams out and can easily can be cut off with a knife. The glue is not cheap but can do some unusual jobs.

If you do not use all the glue squeeze out the air from the plastic bottle and seal with electrical tape and store in a refrigerator.  If you can not get all the air out transfer to a smaller bottle.  Moisture in the air will activate the glue and ruin it.  By doing the above I keep my left over glue for over a year.  I store most of the glues I use in the cold.

Charlie

Clamping is not all that bad.   This is a set of Sears clamps, you can use clothes pins.    Most of this is done with Elmers white glue.  I let the glue tack-up, set open in a small container, apply with a small paint brush and let dry slightly before assembly.   More aggressive yellow carpenters construction glue is also available, but clean-up is required, where the white glue dries clear.

Gorilla glue seems stronger than other white glues so I use it mostly.

Metal and plastic I use Polyurethane hot glue; infinity PUR MP75 Polyurethane Hot Melt Cartridge with a Titebond HiPURformer PUR Hot Melt Gun. This is expensive but holds forever.

As you likely know, you can fall down a long rabbit hole when it comes to discussing various glues and their applications - so I'll try to avoid stepping into the hole directly...  "ordinary" Gorilla glue does require clamping and any excess you see coming out from a joint will dry with a hard foam appearance.  It wants to expand as it cures - one reason for clamping.  I've used it for some home repair projects and its tough stuff, but not the easiest to use.  Because its moisture catalyzed, I've had a couple of bottles turn to bricks from the moisture in the air (even with the cap on).  Gorilla makes a clear glue version of this that I've used - it has the big advantage that it doesn't expand, though the package still recommends clamping.  I tend to buy the smallest unit I can find just to avoid having to throw away a large bottle turned to a brick, but so far the small bottle of the clear glue is still viable.

For woodworking a lot of us use titebond 2 or 3 - I use 3 because it has a longer working time.  As with most glues it recommends clamping, but I would think for things around the layout where strength of the glue joint isn't very important, you could use it without clamping as long as the pieces stay together (gravity...).  there always the fall back to the 'household' glues like E6000, which don't need clamping, but they don't set up very fast (I think of it as a modern day version of the old Testor's (?) model glue a lot of us used for gluing plastic airplanes/cars/etc. back in the day.

CA glue (cyanoacrylate and its cousins, aka superglue) has the advantage that it is quick setting, so clamping may just be a matter of holding the pieces together for a short period of time.  My experience is that there are some materials it doesn't seem to glue very well, including some plastics.  but it does a great job on fingers...  Again I try to buy the smallest unit I can since the shelf life after opening tends to be pretty sort.

The 75 second hot glue takes a bit of time to cool down so I use a inverted can of compressed air to cool it down better than KillerFrost.

For smaller projects, buildings, fences, retaining walls, stairwells etc.  I have had really good luck using the Gel Version of Gorilla Super Glue... The bottle has a blue stripe running across it which says "Super Glue Gel"...  I have heard that it has a small amount of an additive that makes it slightly "flexible" and able to absorb some shock and stress without fracturing it.   I have used it on wood parts, ie stairwells, plastic models, and metal, even used it recently to refasten my rear view mirror mount to my windshield in my mini-van... That was 4 months ago and it hasn't come loose.   

I used it exclusively on the scratch-built and kit-bashed coal mining scene pictured below....  all the wood to wood, wood to plastic, and plastic to plastic joints.   Worked great.   I used a combination of clothes pins, alligator clips, rubber bands,  to hold parts together for about 10 minutes and none of the joints failed....

I am using the yellow wood glue on my layout now under construction. I have found it a great glue. I use it for almost all work on the layout. Frame work to gluing cork roadbed. I don't always clamp it...but seems to work just as well.

So it turns out that Gorilla (website is gorillatough) makes a buncha different glues- so I guess one has to be careful to be specific and not just use the term 'gorilla glue'.  I didn't know about the wood glue, for example.  they also have something on their website that is both 'flexible' and 'very quick setting' - might have to check that out.  Anyway, all FWIW (from part way down the rabbit hole - and no, I don't own stock in the company)

I use the above glue and Gorilla instant CA glue too....love then both.

richs09 posted:

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CA glue (cyanoacrylate and its cousins, aka superglue) has the advantage that it is quick setting, so clamping may just be a matter of holding the pieces together for a short period of time.  My experience is that there are some materials it doesn't seem to glue very well, including some plastics.  but it does a great job on fingers...  Again I try to buy the smallest unit I can since the shelf life after opening tends to be pretty sort.

You can extend shelf life by storing CA in an airtight container with gel packets. Since these seem to come with everything I just throw used ones away after a while.