Maintenance: Fix-All cement

Self-tutoring about maintenance supplies: the tutor mentions a glue he likes.

Things get broken, especially with age. Yet, many of those breaks can be repaired with the right glue. Not every glue is suitable for every job, of course, but it’s handy to have a general-purpose glue.

I first noticed Fix-All Cement (Via-Bond, Via-Chem) at a dollar store. It was only 30mL, but for under two dollars, how could one go wrong?

Like often happens, I didn’t try the Fix-All for a long time. When I finally did, it was to re-fasten a board to the fence whose nail holes had released. Although the board only weighs around half a kilo, I’d say it was a good test of a glue.

Fix-All is interesting in that one applies it, separately, to each surface, waits for 10 minutes, then pushes the surfaces together. Or, for rougher surfaces, the instructions say to apply the glue thickly to both, then wait 30 minutes before pushing them together.

The fence repair I decided was the second situation: rough surfaces, thick layers of glue to both sides, and waiting 30 minutes. After waiting the 30 minutes, I pushed the board to the fence, then stood there, holding it. I couldn’t use a clamp due to the location of the board, so I held it there, as I recall, for maybe five minutes. Then, I gently let go of the board, which stayed in place. (Its position is vertical against the fence, so its staying there was the first meaningful test of the glue.)

I checked the board, periodically, as I continued with other yard chores. The glue’s instructions say full strength of the bond is reached in twelve hours. Therefore, only on the following day did I check the firmness of the board against the fence. To my relief, I couldn’t budge it. It’s been almost a year now; the board is still there, having made it through a couple of weeks of -10°C weather last winter as well as a rainy spring.

Recently I used Fix-All to repair a folding door – that’s another story:)