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I would like to attach a hook to a double skin, painted, fibreglass wall. At the moment I'm thinking that my best option is to glue it somehow. Any suggestions for an adhesive that'll set in the few minutes I'm prepared to stand on a ladder holding it in place?
Or is this a silly idea and some other plan would work better. Obviously taking it back and re-glassing with thread in place would be better, but would require more skill than I have.
What will you be hanging from the hook? If nothing more than a coat, a grab adhesive like No More Nails would be fine. Stronger would be a two part epoxy Resin (Alaldite) but you may need to wait longer for it to set - masking tape is your friend in this scenario.
Edit, just read that it's painted. Chances are it'll just pull the paint off. Maybe draw an outline of the hook and scraoe the paint off?
Pretty sure there are rivnuts made for fibreglass.
It's going to be holding up a guy line for a tarpaulin so needs to be fairly strong but not stronger than the underlying panel.
Some more Googling turns up this stuff which seems to be purpose made for the job - acrylic glue
I'd be interested to see a rivnut designed for plastic, I haven't managed to find any in my searches and can't help but feel that they'd have too small an area to grip on. I suppose one of those rubber cavity wall fittings might work.
The size-area of the glue contact patch is critical - if it is really small you could consider fixing the hook to a plate and glue the plate on - a door sized plate will hold with Priti stock and as you reduce the size of the plate to something realistic then an appropriate glue will hold.
One of the best tips I've seen is to put an epoxy glue in the centre of the fixing and run a little bead of hot melt around the edge. The hot melt will set in seconds and hold the fixing in place until the epoxy reaches its max strength.
I'm currently guilty of using double sided tape for early everything.
double skin, painted, fibreglass wall
Remove the paint where your hook attaches & rough up surface a bit with some coarse grade paper.
Slow set epoxy in the centre of your hook.
Tack it with hot melt around the edge, or tape it in place.
guy line for a tarpaulin so needs to be fairly strong
Does it have to look fancy dandy, or work?
I'd think on bolting a hook to a ply disc of a suitable size/thickness and bond the ply to the wall. The ply can be filled / smoothed / painted afterward, obvs.
At this point you need to be doing some calculations based on the expected loads, the strength of your adhesive, the wall and your contact patch.
Nah, wait till it falls off and do the calculations then.
That's one way of pulling the paint off 😬
as above, unless you remove the paint, that's what you're sticking the hook to, not the wall.
Some kind of No-nails type thing would probably do it. I've used a 3M VHB double sided tape instead of mechanical fixings in an industrial use before and it's performed well, the hook would probably bend before the tape fails tbh 😂
At this point you need to be doing some calculations based on the expected loads, the strength of your adhesive, the wall and your contact patch.
Alternatively is anyone going to die if it fails?
If not, then scratch some paint off and crack on.
The hooks are stuck to a PVC backing, so there's 20cm2 or so of surface area.
Happy to do the calculations if you can point me at formulas and specifications. Tensile strength is easy, peel strength more tricky. Real world may not match theory though. Theory suggests that the PVC should fail before any of the glues (and the non-epoxy glues should fail before the paint does).
I doubt there will be any noticeable change in the death rate whether it fails or not so will give the epoxy and hot glue trick a go.
Thanks all.
When we need a bit of extra 'stick' gluing plastics and appearance isn't critical, we drill matching holes through both pieces and use a 2part epoxy, but make sure it mushrooms through holes in both pieces. This creates a chemical rivet once cured.