Glues / Tapes

Whether it's for maintenance of your airsoft replica, the game itself or leisure, now and then you need to glue, tape or re-glue something. It used to be that you could use a second glue to glue just about anything, but thankfully that era is long gone. Today we have a large variety of adhesives for specific jobs, such as gluing wood, rubber or metal. In adhesive tapes too, times have moved on a lot! How? We'll look at that below.

 

When servicing or upgrading an "airsoft", we come across specific adhesives in several cases, most often threaded adhesives, bearing adhesives, or universal adhesives for taping impact rubbers or, for example, in sniper rifles for taping TDC.

 

Threaded adhesives

These adhesives are generally used on all screws against self-loosening and are specially designed so that the screw cannot loosen by itself, for example due to shocks, but can be loosened if necessary. We have already discussed these adhesives in the piston head chapter.

 

 

 

 

 

There are several types of threaded adhesives, which differ in strength. In order to be easily distinguished from each other, this liquid is colored. The most commonly used colours are green, red and blue.

 

 

 

 

 

Below we will describe the different types of thread adhesives:

 

1. Low strength - most often green in colour. They are designed to allow easy removal of joints without much effort. The most common use is for mechabox bolts, for example, or to secure bolts on body pins.

 

2. Medium strength - most commonly blue in colour. The joint is strong, but can still be disassembled with more force if necessary. Use in airsoft is found where we know that the joint will be stressed but the part will need to be replaced at some point. For example, the piston head or the screw that holds the processor unit in the mechabox.

 

3. Strong strength - most often red. The joint is very strong and difficult to separate, so they are used for permanent connections. An ideal example, are the various eyelets on the strap that hold on the nut bolt. It must be taken into account that disassembly can be very difficult.

 

Please note: each manufacturer colors their adhesives to their standards, meaning that one manufacturer's green is a low hardness joint but another's green may be a permanent joint color.

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For example, the manufacturer 4UAD offers great threaded adhesives graded according to hardness, which are also equipped with a dispenser for convenient application.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What adhesive to use on bearings that are spinning or falling out of the mechabox?

For these purposes, adhesives are sold specifically for bonding bearings. Their property is that they fill that slight gap between the bearing and the mechabox and glue the two parts firmly together. These adhesives offer functional strength in just a few minutes, are often resistant to oils and are capable of bonding even greasy surfaces and surfaces where surface cleanliness is not guaranteed.

 

Technician's tip: We recommend complete degreasing of both the bearings and the mechabox. This will ensure that the joint holds well and the bearing will not separate in the future.

Gluing of impact rubbers, sorbopods or TDC

Anyone who goes about servicing their airsoft darlings may have already encountered a loose impact rubber or sorbopad from the cylinder head.

In this situation, you either reach for the instant glue which, is definitely not a bad thing, or the specialized rubber adhesives. Both options are fine in this case.

Technician's tip: If you want to make sure that the sorbopad or impact rubber (even on a new cylinder head) doesn't loosen over time, don't be afraid to glue it on. The ideal procedure is to clean the head of any coarse dirt or original glue, degrease the cylinder head, apply glue to both the cylinder head and the rubber/sorbopad - just a little, weight the head or clamp it and let the glue cure ideally for about 15 min (depending on the glue). Be careful not to clog the nose of the cylinder head with glue!

With sniper rifles, you may again encounter the installation of a TDC regulation hop up chamber. The TDC module is either installed with a screw or can be taped. If you choose to install using glue, it is ideal to choose a two component (Epoxy) glue. Epoxy adhesives are known for their extreme strength with both interior and exterior use, plus some adhesives such as Gorilla Glue are clear once cured.

 

Other adhesives and other applications

Our company is a proud distributor of quality Gorilla Glue adhesives. This company, originating from the USA, has been offering premium products for two decades. Their product range ranges from wood glues to strength adhesive tapes to specialised two-component adhesives.

 

 

 

 

Of Gorilla Glue's range, their popular specialty adhesive tapes for both interior and exterior use are definitely worth mentioning. With their resistance to moisture, UV, extreme temperatures, or even for some types of underwater use, they have a really wide range of applications for just about everything you can think of from bonding plaster to gluing cracks in a tent canvas, to gluing holes in a boat.

 

 

 

 

In this category you can also find Teflon tapes. It is most often used to seal hop up chambers. A small layer is wrapped around the barrel under the hop up rubber band, thus achieving the stretching of the rubber band in the chamber. This will help define any clearance between the chamber and the rubber band which, along with coating the top of the rubber band with Vaseline, will prevent air leakage.

 

 

Another use for Teflon tape can be to seal the air lines, most commonly between the cylinder head and the cylinder. Here, however, we would rather recommend replacing the o-ring and making it thicker, or consider buying a new duct.