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Goop Is Good


Iowa Tom

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I use a lot of magnets and have not been happy with goop as it seems to let loose after a while and leave my magnets stuck to the the metal instead of the container.

    On the other hand epoxy works great for me (although I live in California and the temp rarely gets below freezing)

I was surprised to read your post. I've had the exact opposite luck with Goop. I have found that it has held magnets to micros very well.

Edited by sbell111
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You might also try visiting the auto repair aisle for some body-filler. Not super great as a glue but it tends to work well for sculpting camouflage and can be easily painted. Also it is able to withstand a lot of temperature changes and still hold onto the base metal.

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my current micro has its magnet attached with hot glue and so far it seams to have held up, and hopefully when it does start to fail someone will let me know and I can go repair it (maybe with a better glue if we can al agree on one). The good thing is that my container is also ferros metal so if the glue fails the magnet will still stay in place.

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Goop is good for some uses and not so good for others. I was using it to hold earth magnets to plastic containers and every one failed within a few weeks. This was despite roughing up both surfaces.

I wonder what we are doing differently. My magnets were glued to the bottom (NOT the cap) of film canisters and they stayed stuck. What kind of containers did you use?

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Goop is good for some uses and not so good for others.  I was using it to hold earth magnets to plastic containers and every one failed within a few weeks. This was despite roughing up both surfaces.

I wonder what we are doing differently. My magnets were glued to the bottom (NOT the cap) of film canisters and they stayed stuck. What kind of containers did you use?

Bottom of film canister, a plastic coin holder and and a Lock n Lock.

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I have used Marine Goop with excellent results for years. If it's made to hold stuff together on boats, subject to the elements, I reasoned it should do well for cache construction as well. Never had any problems.

PS the thicker viscosity also make is more suitable for gluing together uneven surfaces, as it will also act as a filler. No thin watery epoxy can do that.

Edited by wimseyguy
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Maybe its a freezing thing.  At most, my micros never had more than a week of freezing a year.

Could be it. It was winter. One cache in Vt and two in NJ.

The best thing about goop is that it normally doesn't get real hard like regular glues. I bet it shrinks a bit as it freezes and just pops off, however. It probaqbly has a pretty low freezing point. That would explain why I didn't have a problem, even when it got a few degrees below 32.

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I use GOOP to hold anything to anything. I don’t however glue bark or something else that will rot onto my caches. Any camouflage I attach to a cache is something that will not rot. The epoxy I tried was the quick set stuff. It got hard, turned yellow and even broke up after some months.

 

If I use GOOP to attach a neodymium (Nd, rare-earth) magnet to any nonferrous object I smear glue under AND OVER the magnet so that even if the glue lose its grip on the magnet itself it will (hopefully) hold it in place under the thin layer of glue. The glue is like a hard rubber band. I usually wrap the glue all the way around a micro container and over the top of the magnet. The over-the-top layer is added only after the glue under the magnet has hardened up. I find that the GOOP sags so I may have to rotate the container for a while the glue is drying.

 

The GOOP holds up well outside all year here in Iowa. I’m talking from <-20 F to >100 F and with lots of water!

 

I suspect that all the varieties of GOOP are the same. I wouldn’t doubt that they simply package the same stuff under “automotive” and “outdoor” and “household” etc., in hopes of selling more tubes to the same person.

 

When I glue the Nd magnets to some things, like between two pieces of wood etc, I first drill a magnet sized pocket. In that I insert a steel screw. Any slot/s in the screw add surface area. Onto the screw goes a layer of GOOP. To the soft GOOP I drop the magnet. Because the magnet holds onto the screw the connection is more permanent.

 

One cache I made requires a key to get open. The key is hidden nearby inside a waterproof match container. The match container is itself inside a 3” diameter cedar branch cut off and attached to the base of another tree near a fence post. See the image pasted below.

 

55255eb9-8e30-4eaa-a429-8a6a204c6cc3.jpg

 

The cedar is weather resistant and looks like it was growing up in that location. The branch was carefully cut in half with a hacksaw and drilled out just enough to hold the match container. The bottom of the match container is glued into the upper side of the branch but the lid is in a loose fitting hole in the bottom half of the branch. The two pieces of branch are held together by two pairs of powerful Nd magnets. To be assured that the two halves of the branch stayed in perfect positions I glued in two different sized brass connectors, male and female, into holes I drilled into the cut area. The connectors polarize the orientation of the wood so that it only goes together one way. I drilled the holes for the tubes slightly oversized. The tubes were glued in then the glue was allowed to set with the tubes together while the two halves of the branch were held in a carefully arranged position. This technique allowed for the two parts to have a perfect alignment once the glue dried.

 

To make sure that the magnetic connection was maximally strong I first glued one set of the magnets on the bottom side of the branch and allowed it to harden. Of course the branch was held vertically during this procedure. Once that glue was dry the next step was to lay some plastic wrap (for sandwiches etc.) on top of the magnets already glued in place. [The glue does not stick to that type of plastic.] To that I placed the mated magnets onto the wrap then I took that part of the branch out of the vice and inserted the top half in. Into the depressions where the screws were on the top part of the branch I added some GOOP. Then I carefully aligned the bottom part of the branch with the top part that was now inverted in the vice. The glue only made contact with the magnets on the inverted top side of the branch where the screws were in that part. After two days of drying I separated the two halves and let the glue fully dry.

 

So far everything is holding together. :D

 

Merry Christmas

 

-it

Edited by Iowa Tom
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