Translucent Color Fill adhesive for engraved text

Community Laser Talk
1

ISO a Translucent color (pink, blue, green, etc) cement/glue for acrylic for engrave filling in letters and to glue 2 pieces together.

**BACKSTORY: ** I took shop in the Jr. High back in the 93. We used a CNC to engrave our names on an acrylic sheet, then we filled the text with this colored transparent glue/adhesive and sandwiched a solid one on top. We had to sand the edges until they looked like glass and you can see the colors through the edges and on the front. Is there anything like that on the market? I’ve tried UV resin, and it came apart. The stuff from Jr. High was like high strength glue, but in clear pretty colors.

2

Perhaps pourable epoxy with added colors, as in this acrylic test piece:

This is with clear epoxy poured around the shattered glass:

It’s a multi-layer stack that lined up almost perfectly:

From the top:

  • Clear acrylic: 1.5 mm = 1/16 inch
  • Black acrylic: 1.5 mm = 1/16 inch
  • Clear acrylic: 3.2 mm = 1/8 inch
  • Mirror acrylic: 2.7 mm
  • Cork: 2.7 mm cut from a standard round coaster base

Definitely a labor-intensive project … :grin:

3

Thanks, I’m wanting to avoid 2 part epoxy all together. It yellows over time. This stuff I used back in the day looked like your color pallet, but it came straight out the bottle as is. It didnt take long for it to set up, nor did it yellow.

4

There are non-yellowing epoxies, but I can understand wanting to avoid mixing.

How strong was the odor from this translucent colored adhesive? How volatile? How viscous was it? All the acrylic cements I’ve used are powerful odor, highly volatile, and water-thin. Methacrylate. Strong carcinogen, iirc. This MAY be tintable with a suitable dye/pigment, but I haven’t tried it.

Probably not used in a public school in the 90s.

I suggest contacting Smooth-On to see if they can recommend anything.

5

Thank you, I sent them a message and a picture of what im looking for, sort of. But not sure if its the same process

0000541_colorcast-square-acrylic-award-5_725
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6

You can almost certainly tint clear PVA glue, but it doesn’t sound like it will do what you want.

Maybe an air cure clear polyurethane? It would set hard enough to polish but I’m not sure about holding strength to acrylic.

Would this be encapsulated such that air cure would be a problem? If so, I think it would have to be pretty volatile or catalyzed.

I’ve done a fair bit of hobby-level resin, casting/molding, and bonding work but there are SOO many details for material interaction, physical properties, etc. I’m far from an expert in the field.