Im at the last stages of my kotatsu table and need to attach a large sheet of felt to a sheet of hardboard and smaller strips to wood. Does anyone know of a good glue i could use for this? I have to cover roughly 4x6 foot area. The smaller strips also have to be attached without the getting the glue anywhere else.
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There are several alternatives. You could use contact cement it will give you the best adhesion. The bad, hard to do in large pliable applications as once the adhesive come in contact with each other (you have to apply to both sides) there is no oportunity to reposition the pieces. There are spray adhesives such as 3M Super 77 and other comparable brands. Some have different strengths low, medium, and high. Depending on their strength, the adhesive can be quite thick. I mention this because the thicker adhesive if not applied evenly can create bumps on the fabric. If you go the contact cement route, there is the low fumes and high kind. The high kind gives very high flamable fumes and you need very good ventilation. The spray adhesive there is two ways. You can spray the base (i would choose the wood side) only which gives you the opportunity to reposition or remove thefabric rather easy. Spray evenly thin coats until you see a white coat or some shine starting to show (some adhesives are colored such as gray or black, 3M 77 is transparent). The second way is to spray both surfaces which will make it permanent once it cures. To mate the surfaces I would roll your fabric on a piece of large diameter pvc pipe or if you can get a cardboard core tube from an upholstery fabric or carpet place. Spray the wood wait a few minutes then spray the exposed piece of fabric and position on the wood making sure you’re square and start smoothing the fabric withe a plastic squeegee or plastic putty knife. Then spray the next area of the exposed fabric, wait a minute or two roll over and repeat the smoothing process. Continue until done. If you have a large enough table you could stretch the fabric on it, secure all edges with masking tape. Spray wood, then fabric wait a minute or two then drop the wood on top of fabric. Turn over and do the smoothing process to make sure you apply the pressure to properly adhere the surfaces. If you do not have a flat surface such as bottom of a drawer. Mask the sides and any area you dont want adhesive on. Making sure your fabric is over size perform the above. procedure then with the the squeegee or plastic putty knife squeeze the fabric as good as you can in the corners and with a sharp blade cut the excess and remove the tape or masking. Any of the above methods you probably CAN NOT do them inside Asembly due to the amount of fumes. Wear gloves and a respirator, have good ventilation and be away from open flames as the fumes are very flammable. You do have the option of double sided tape but the kind you need is not readily available and is costly. You maybe able to find self adhesive felt. It is used in the automotive industry and construction but I’m not sure if you can find the size you need. A quick search in Amazon gave me a 36” X 72” roll. You could do a checkered pattern of smaller pieces alternating colors for contrast with this material. I’m not sure how durable this material would be as I have never used it. One way you could improve the adhesion of this material would be to spray the wood with adhesive first wait until is tacky and then apply the fabric. Whatever spray adhesive you use, read the instructions. The applications are similar but can differ in the prep work. Be safe and good luck!
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Wow! thanks for the super rigorous answer! ill go with the spray and roll method, and for the smaller strips use a bunch of masking tape. That also gave me an idea for how to fill in the edges because when i put in the inserts they wont perfectly cover the base because of fraction of degree imperfections. But after i apply the felt with the roller like you said, i could then flip the piece over, and put a long but thin tube of rolled up fabric along each edge, then spay some glue over it and the back of the piece, and fold the extra fabric from the front side over. This would make each edge have a compressible band of fabric to fill all those gaps
Thanks again for the help!