Amberoid glue

davelanthier

Wooden Canoes are in the Blood
Is amberoid glue available under a different name? Are there any good substitutes? The stores out here have never heard of it.
 
Thanks Benson. I was hoping to find either that product or a substitute locally [ Western Canada ].
 
Is Ambroid cement a contact cement--that is, you apply glue to two separate surfaces, let them dry, and then affix the surface of the patch to the canoe's canvas? Or, is Ambroid just a waterproof cement that looks and smells like model airplane cement? Is Duco cement a reasonable substitute?

Mark Douglass
 
Ambroid bath

I'm not sure what the rules are for application, but as a temporary repair we put it directly on the hull to fill gouges in the paint and filler.
Here's my son performing our nightly ritual. Ambroid blends in really well with shellac.
When we got home, we gave the boat a quick sand and put more shellac on it.
It's not "showroom" but it looks pretty good.
I just happen to have a picture of the Ambroid anointment.
Allagash Ambroid Bath.jpg
 
Ambroid is not a contact cement -- it is a cellulose or nitro-cellulose based cement or glue where the parts to be joined are put together while the glue is wet.

Duco cement is also a nitro-cellulose based glue or cement. While I found the MSDS for Duco
( http://www.kelloggmarine.com/msds/DEV- Devcon/DEV_62465_MSDS.pdf ) where the component chemicals are listed, I could not find one for Ambroid, so the solvents in Ambroid may not be the same.

Duco is a very effective glue for some plastics because its solvents dissolve the plastic, and when the solvents evaporate, the plastic is effectively welded together. Very effective at sticking plastic model airplanes together -- creating a joint that is impossible to separate. As a glue for other materials, Duco is applied to one or both surfaces, the items to be glued are put together while the glue is wet, and should stick together when the solvent evaporates. Pretty effective with porous materials, much less so with non-porous stuff, except the plastics that it can dissolve.

If you've used Duco, you know that if you get it on your fingers, it dries quite rapidly, after which you can peel away the thin clear plastic-like material which is effectively water resistant or water proof (probably doesn't meet the current technical standards for "water proof" which involve boiling).

Though I haven't used it that way, I would expect Duco would make a satisfactory canvas repair material.

Though the solvent(s) in Ambroid may differ from those in Duco, the dried glue appears to be much the same -- some form of cellulose. See the short history of Ambroid may be found at http://www.ottertooth.com/Canoe_pages/ambroid.htm
 
Greg,

Thanks very much. I have read so much about the joys of Ambroid, but as a day-to-day practical matter, I have what is available to my local hardware store.

I just bought a 1915 B.N. Morris which was restored about 25 years ago, but its canvas had several slashes in it. Because I do not want to re-canvas just yet, but I want to get the canoe in the water, I have been learning about and doing double patching of the canvas. Every trip to the hardware store, I buy several tubes of Duco cement.

The one problem I have had is that the Duco cement applied to the under-patch and the inside surface of the existing canvas soaks up through the outside layer of paint and causes it to bubble. When doing a patch in the field, I suppose one scrapes away the paint surface to get to the canvas before applying the outer patch of new canvas. In my garage, however, I will be soon trying acetone or some other solvent to clean the old canvas of its paint so that I can apply cement for the outside patch.

Mark Douglass

P.S. Because I wanted to get the canoe in the water, instead of removing paint and then gluing canvas patches on the outside, I ended up using duct tape for the outer patch of my double patch attempt. It worked fine. I took the canoe out and only ended up with about a cup or two of water in the bottom of my canoe. I was disappointed in this, until several hours after the fact, I remembered that I entered my canoe "wet shoe"---actually both high-top tennis shoes and thick socks soaked with water.
 
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