You offer a wide variety of adhesives. Which adhesive should I use?

The choice of adhesive depends upon your application. Adhesives can be classified into two groups: optically opaque adhesives and optically transparent adhesives.

Optically opaque adhesives are used when light is not going to be transmitted through the adhesive, such as when bonding a mirror to an aluminum mount. Milbond and Loctite® are two such adhesives. Milbond adhesive, for example, uses two bonding agents that, when combined, create the adhesive. There is also a decementing agent available for Milbond that allows the adhesive to be removed when necessary. These type of adhesives do not require UV light in order to cure.

Optically transparent adhesives allow light to transmit through and are commonly used to bond lenses together. The Norland and Summers lines are two such adhesives. When cured with a UV light source, the adhesive has a defined index of refraction which we list under the specifications of each adhesive. Please note that UV adhesives such as Summers and Norland do not come with decementing agents and are very difficult to break the adhesion once cured.