Tips for Securely Gluing Jewelry

Two-part epoxies are more work, but have excellent durability, for when you really want your designs to last.
Super glues are best for surfaces that fit exactly together (no gaps), or where you need just a small dab of extra security.
Some specialty & craft glues are flexible or work well for bonding plastics, foil-back crystal, porous materials such as wood and fabric, or metal-to-metal bonds. Each adhesive in our website includes detailed usage information to help you pick the right glue for secure jewelry bonds.
Making mosaics or adding inclusions? You might want to prefer our carefully curated selection of jewelry clays and resins.

When possible, use a file to roughen smooth surfaces. This allows for a stronger grip.
Clean both surfaces before applying adhesive (alcohol or acetone and a cotton swab).
Follow the manufacturer's directions.
Test a small sample and allow it to cure thoroughly before proceeding with a batch of 300 pieces for that awesome trade show coming up.
Work in a well-ventilated, dry, and dust-free environment.
After cleaning both items, allow to dry completely.
Extreme temperatures might affect drying time.
Store all adhesives in a cool place.
Resins and sealants can sometimes also be used as adhesives.
Some adhesives, resins and sealants have shipping restrictions -- to prevent order delays, heed the orange HZ shipping alerts.
MSDS (Material Safety and Data Sheets) are available upon request.

Our favorite gluing support is a large flat piece of styrofoam: you can pokes holes in it with flat pad posts so your embellishments don't go sliding off while the adhesive is drying, or so you don't have to hold each item carefully in your hand while it dries (who has time for that?). You can carve holes in the styrofoam for trickier shaped items. Do your carving (and cleanup) before you open the glue!

Avoid shipping glues during winter months, since many will lose effectiveness once frozen. This is especially true of super glues.
Store finished creations in a location that maintains temperatures above freezing.
To intentionally weaken a super glue bond, place glued object in a household freezer for several hours. (Epoxy glues also become brittle in low temperatures, but most will not snap apart as super glues do. To separate mis-glued epoxies, try a solvent like Attack... but heed the orange shipping alert).

Dec 27th 2021 Rings & Things Staff