Gluing Plastic Cell Case To Leather

[Artimus]

What glue do you use to attach a plastic clip-in /; snap-in cell case (iphone, etc. etc.) to the inside of leather?

Last night I tried 8 different adhesives.... (yes, EIGHT)

I Had a long strip of plastic, and I cut 8 pieces of leather all from the same hide. I Labelled all 8 and glued away.

1. E6000

2. Gorilla Glue Gel

3. Super Glue Gel

4. Fiebings Leather glue

5. weldwood Contact cement (did this in two stages. Put on thin layer to both, dried, put on second layer to both. let dry, then attach).

6. Generic super glue / wal-mart

7. Beacon 527

8. Super glue purple brush on.

Left over night and pulled on the loose end the next morning . ..

Utter failures:

7. Beacon 527 (the wind would have blown this off!)

6. Generic Super Glue

Some that were "okay" :

1. E6000

3. Super Glue Gel

5. Weldwood

The best (but still not great) of these 8 were:

2. Gorilla Glue Gel

5. Super glue purple

Anyhow. . . . Even the three best weren't great. It didn't take much to pull them apart. The glues adhered to the leather, but only a few tiny bits of Gorilla and Super glue stuck to the plastic.

Is there something else out there that's better!??!?!

Example of plastic case below or attached.

[BDAZ]

Assuming you are gluing to the outside of the case, I would first clean the case with acetone and remove and mold release then I would really rough up the surface with a low grit paper or wire brush. The I would use a high solids solvent based cement like barge cement coating both sides and allowing to dry to slightly tacky.

Cya!

Bob

[Artimus]

Thanks bob!!

I've always used Weldwood cement. I've read some about Barge. How different is Barge from weldwood. Both are contact cements, right? is Barge better / stronger than Weldwood?

[Tree Reaper]

Can you drill it and use rivets?

[BDAZ]

Barge is used by shoemakers and seems to be a better adhesive than either Weldwood or the Tandy version.

Cya!

Bob

[Dwight]

If you make a surface that the Weldwood can adhere to, . . . nothing is going to break that chemical bond between the two layers of Weldwood.

OTOH, . . . if you do not have a surface to which it can adhere, . . . you are trying to climb the proverbial greased pole, . . . since it has nothing to grab, . . . it slips off.

I took a piece of Kydex some time back, . . . scratched it up seriously with a wire brush, . . . put the Kydex and the leather together with Weldwood, . . . and when I decided that it would not work, . . . well, I worked to get that leather off the Kydex. There are many, many little pieces of leather still on the Kydex.

May God bless,

Dwight

[King's X]

roughing up the areas would have been my first suggestion. I used Master's Contact Cement and Weldwood in two coats and still strong.

[silverwingit]

I deal with this situation with the hybrid leather/kydex harmonica cases I make. I've found no cement/glue that I am comfortable using and then letting one of my products out the door. If there is any but the slightest amount of force put on the final product, stay far away from cements or glues.

For me the only sure solution is drilling holes in the plastic, punching corresponding holes in the leather and using kydex or leather eyelets to positively lock the kydex and leather together in place, for good. I settled on eyelets over rivets because they can be hammered on both sides to a flatter end-result than rivets.

Good luck and let is know what you end up deciding on.

Michelle