Silicone caulk as an adhesive?

Yup

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Often used that way. Black silicone is the go-to adhesive for fireplace "guys" to stick items to fire brick where they won't get hit by direct flames. The stuff can take quite high heat. I used to fuss with fire clay to seal the rim of our fireplace door unit. It kept cracking and crumbling each year. Chimney guy told me about the silicone trick. It's been 15+ years and still in good shape.

Re: Yup

Kneale Brownson

I've used clear silicone to "glue" several mirrors into their frames.

If you're going to display the tin in some sort of frame, you can apply it to the frame, insert the tin and let it rest face down so the silicone can cure. If you plan to just paste it in place on a wall, use painter tape to hold it up during curing.

Re: Yup

Tom Norton

Thanks for the replies!

A nice cherry substrate will be used.

Re: Silicone caulk as an adhesive?

John C Lucas

Yes. Ive been using it for 20 years to glue my mirrors to the wood. A other good adhesive for that is E6000. Both work great as glue. I dont have any long term tests to see if E6000 will react with the mirror silver but for your purpose it should work fine. I used E6000 to glue aome steel letters to a board that faces the morning sun and went through the full winter this last year. Still holding strong.

+1 on the E6000

paul in AZ

I've used this a number of times for dissimilar materials and am impressed with it's strength.

A plus in many cases is that it takes longer to set up than most glues so there is more than enough working time.

Similar question....

Tim Greif - West of Chicago

Not trying to hijack the thread, but I have a similar question. LOML wants to attach a few kcolored croquet mallet heads to a piece of weathered cedar as a sort of artsy fartsy display piece. I initially figured epoxy, but this thread has me wondering if the silicone is a better idea. Thoughts?

Sounds like

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

a screw or two from the back in each will do the trick. I'd not like to worry about mallet heads dropping on someone.

Re: Similar question....

John K Jordan

>>>LOML wants to attach a few kcolored croquet mallet heads to a piece of weathered cedar as a sort of artsy fartsy display piece. I initially figured epoxy, but this thread has me wondering if the silicone is a better idea. Thoughts?

Could you put screws through the cedar into the mallet heads? That would be secure in case the adhesive let loose and bonked someone on the head. Of course, Tom didn't say but his piece of rusty metal might be a guillotine blade.

One small issue with adhesive on something round/cylindrical is the small potential contact area and possible visible squeeze out if you use enough silicone to hold.

JKJ

Not only that, but

Keith Newton

Not knowing how big and heavy his piece is relative to the bonded area, is that the bond is only as strong as the weakest link. In this case it may be between the paint and wood. Old paint can flake pretty easily, and primers are made to sand easily, not become part of the structural integrity.

Tim, I think you misspelled "folksy".

Re: Silicone caulk as an adhesive?

TomD

So one thing people do is get some of those adhessive poster mounting things, and you can make such a thing out of double sided tape and cardboard. Anyway you use that to hold your object to the wall while the caulk dries. It is a glue that like a little thickness. Anything that spaces will work.

It is interesting stuff it is great where there is vibration, you can use it to seat hardware in high vibration areas, and one would think the amount left after a machine screw was down would be near zero, but it still seems to make a difference.

The problem with E6000

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

It must loose solvent to cure. If you are gluing two large nonpermeable surfaces it may takes years to cure. The advantage of silicone is once it is exposed to water vapor curing begins and no solvent needs to be lost to make a bond.