Digital Making | Material Joinery
Over the past week, I have been experimenting with ideas on how to join the material to itself in such a way that it will be able to handle any compression and tension acted upon it.
Thanks to Sarah, I was able to grab some scrap pieces of latex and nylon spandex to experiment with.
Latex
First up i experimented with latex. At first i thought that melting the material to itself with a flame would create a strong bond as it is fusing with itself, however that was not the case.
As you can see, latex melts and burns quite easily. Trying to melt the two pieces together became a hassle and the two pieces quickly pulled apart.
Next was hot glue.
The two pieces bonded together quite easily. Glue was applied on either side before any tests were performed. At first, the pieces held but once the piece was pulled, it quickly came apart.
The latex lasted approximately 60mm before it came clean off the hot glue, suggesting that the glue acted more like a joint rather than bonding the pieces together.
With this in mind, I attempted a more flexible glue, Tarzan’s Grip. Unfortunately, this ended with the exact same results, only this time the latex didn’t last nearly as long.
Nylon Spandex
Next was the nylon spandex, which proved to be much more promising. Given we know the results of hot glue, i decided to skip straight to the Tarzan’s Grip.
A bead of glue was applied along the edges of both pieces. It looks as if the glue may of had a reaction during the curing process and has spread itself, either way the opposite side looked clean.
As shown above, the Tarzan’s Grip was a success with nylon. The material was able to withstand being stretched without any signs of the glue letting go. I was unable to measure the span but would be confident in saying it was able to stretch 60mm in both directions.
To Do
After some reading online, it seems that the best way to bond latex is with itself, however the way i approached it was incorrect. There are three methods I’ve come across; using liquid latex, contact adhesive/rubber based adhesive or citric acid to bond pieces together.
Tests with contact adhesive and citric acid are to be done. The major problem is looking for a way to attach the material to the structure. With nylon, it would of been possible to use additional hardware such as eyelets, however these would rip straight out of the latex. It may be possible to just use an adhesive but tests will need to be performed to see just how durable this method would be.
