Bearing material for a dovetail shim

I think you will have better luck using a polyurethane adhesive to glue anything with some oil on it. I am not sure about one part polyurethane adhesives as gorilla glue, but the two part polyurethane adhesives were touted for oil tolerance about twenty years ago.

Dan

Just "pickle" the surface for a while with a hot strong alkali like lye or saturated TSP solution.

Most of the oil near the surface will saponify, and be removable with water. Pre-heating the metal will help draw the lye bath into the pores as the metal cools. This works slowly with petroleum oils and pretty rapidly with vegetable oils. Keep the surface wet with the alkali until it becomes cloudy and filled with soap from the reaction.

If you're worried about leaving alkali residues, you can neutralize with vinegar, then wash again with clear water.

LLoyd

May your parts stick together forever. d8-)

BTW, it's much quicker and easier to do it than to describe it.

-- Ed Huntress

Oh, yeah, I remember reading something about that somewhere. Thanks, Dan. I'll try it some time.

-- Ed Huntress

Ha! A good tip. That's like prepping a gun barrel for bluing.

Now, where's that big pot I use for boiling my lathe...d8-)

-- Ed Huntress

Regarding the tricks for gluing metal with epoxy, I should mention a couple of other things: Don't clamp the parts. It's easy to starve a joint when you're gluing metal, and, with epoxy, the peel- and cleavage strength of the joint will go to hell if the joint is starved.

Experts at metal bonding sometimes place little bits of 0.003" shim stock or wire in the joint to keep the parts separated while the epoxy cures. You just leave them in the joint. They don't hurt anything.

-- Ed Huntress