Hi. I'm making a jewellery box. I'm trying to line it with fabric. The method I've chosen is to cut cardboad to fit, then bend the fabric over the cardboard, then stick the whole lot down. I've tried several glues and double sided tape - none really seems to work.

I've searched the web and found lots of recommendations - mostly spray on adhesives, and mostly from USA where they must have very different products available.

Can anyone recommend a method of sticking the cardboard inserts down ? Its specific product names that I'm really after.

cheers and thanks
Arron

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I have just used a standard yellow glue from the big green shed or carbatec applied very thinly to the cardboard (to avoid it bleeding through) and stick the material straight to the cardboard. To some extent though I guess it depends on the fabric you are using.

I use standard PVA slightly wet with felt straight on the timber in preference to cardboard & fabric, never had a problem.

I used hot melt on a box I did, and it seemed to work okay.

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Chris
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Life isn't always fair

....................but it's better than the alternative.

I recommend you try some Tesa brand double sided adhesive tape. The one I use has a bright red peel off layer but the tape that is left is very strong and both sides are very aggressive with their adhesive. It readily sticks to fabric cardboard metal wood felt etc..
IMHO it makes the exercise so much easier and cleaner than applying glue.

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I've uesd double sided tape too - mainly because of the reason you give , because its a lot cleaner. What I find though, is that if I put the box aside for a week or two then its quite likely that the tape will have let go. It never lets go to the wood - it fails where it attaches to the cardboard. It only happens to some bits, not sure why. Have you experienced this ?

cheers
Arron

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When you say it fails after a couple of weeks where it sticks to the cardboard, is the cardboard delaminating or is the adhesive tape just "unsticking'' from the card board?
With the tape I use, once you stick it to the cardboard, that's it. If you try to remove it the cardboard delaminates. I make sure I buy a good quality cardboard from an art shop. You need a good quality board so it can be scored for bending.
I have used this type of Tesa tape for many different applications, some even where I wanted to attach stretch felt to wood and I was amazed at how durable it was, even under prolonged elevated temperature applications.
It aint cheap.........you get what you pay for!

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And my head I'd be a scratchin'
While my thoughts were busy hatchin'
If I only had a brain.

I line some of my boxes with fancy paper. I use liquid hide glue - the one you can use at room temp - from Titebond. It is very sticky yet slimy enough to slide the paper into position.

No, not the cardboard delaminating. The tape just comes off the cardboard, which is odd because it keeps on keeping on to the timber. Maybe I need to try this Tesa tape. Where did you buy it ?
cheers
Arron

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Flocking of course is another option which a lot of people overlook. Easy to do and very effective.

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Cheers John

The cardboard should be cut to a friction press fit with the fabric glued on. Spray on adhesive for the fabric and cardboard. Buy it from an art/ craft supply shop to get a decent one.

A dab of hot melt on the underside of the cardboard -middle and corners- to hold the already tight board in place. It works for me.

However, you haven't said how big the area to be lined is. I wouldn't use the above approach for an empty 10" x10" space.

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Graeme

about 300 x 200mm for the lid and base, and several inserts for the trays which are mostly about 70x100mm or less.

Arron

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Try some of the craft supply places, like Spotlight. They have glues specially suited for this. If you find it a bit embarrasing to be seen in such places, get your wife, or a female friend to go with you. You can pretend that she is really buying it, and you got dragged along.

I’ve had a chance to experiment with each of the techniques mentioned here so I’m now posting the results, just for completeness and in case it helps someone else.

Pretty much all the methods mentioned here worked. This is what I found:

1. Double sided tape. I wasn’t able to access the very high-adhesion tape mentioned here so my comments are limited to the Newagency-sourced stuff I used. Sticking things down with d.s. tape was hit and miss. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it gave way after a few hours or days. I tried experimenting with the different sides against different surfaces but I couldn’t find any consistent set of rules to how it behaves. I did notice that it worked very poorly on felts, which I think is because it adhered to the outermost fibres of the fabric. Though it stuck to these very well and quite permanently, it will fail when these outermost fibres come adrift from the fabric as a whole. On some fabrics, especially shiny, slinky velvets, it seemed to have no adhesion at all.
There was one use where it was very valuable, however – plastering it in liberal quantities over the side of the cardboard which faced the fabric made the process easier. It held the fabric firm in the finished box which gives a nice feel to the fabric – which to me is a higher quality effect then feeling it moving around under your fingertips. It also made the process easier, making it easy to bend the fabric around the cardboard with consistent tightness.

2. Hot melt glue. I approached this with trepidation because I thought it would be a disaster but in fact it was OK within certain limits. On small bits (the inserts to the trays) it worked well, both for holding the fabric to the cardboard and glueing the whole lot down. Its quick too, and almost clean. For larger bits (the bottom of the lid and the base of the box itself) I found it impossible to get the glue spread along an entire edge and then the surfaces mated without some parts cooling first. The result was inconsistent glue-downs. I found that if not every part of the cardboard sheet was glued down then you get ‘boomy’ bits where you can feel the airgap when you press on the lining with a finger. Two other things that bothered me were the tendancy to leave long sticky trails, which can be quite difficult to remove from fabric, and sometimes I got knobbly bits where a glob hardened before I could press the surface down and smooth it out. Perhaps a better glue gun would help – mine is just a craft store cheapie – I think one that keeps a longer length of glue hot within the gun might be better because I found that after distributing a fair bit of glue it starts to come out slower and cooler.

3. PVA glue. This worked well. I found Quickset PVA best, because it minimizes setting time to about 10 or 15 minutes with (often) no need for clamps or weights. I thought I would have problems with the glue bleeding through the cardboard but not so. It also has the advantage of some wriggle time, not sudden death like the previous two methods. I also tried gluing felt down directly to the timber with PVA and that worked well too – no bleed though again. I tried gluing other fabrics (don’t know their names, velvety type things) down directly and some of these were good though there will be issues with fraying edges depending upon fabric and box design. In general, I preferred the look of the fabric wrapped around cardboard first, it gives a softer edge and provides some tolerance in sizing if the fabric is reasonably thick.

4. I also used craft glue (Boyle Craft Glue and Helmar’s Premium Craft Glue). Nothing wrong with them at all except that they took a longer time to set.

5. I also tried a variant of the ‘a strong glue and a quick glue’ method that I have seen used by tilers. I put several pieces of d.s. tape on the back of a piece of cardboard, and then plastered the PVA around the tape, then pressed it all down. The intention is that the d.s. tape holds the cardboard down long enough for the PVA to set. Then it doesn’t matter if the tape gives way, as the PVA still covers the majority of the surface. This worked well, no need for clamps or weights and you can carry on working with the piece.

In summary, quickset PVA is the killer.

cheers - and thanks to all those who contributed.
Arron

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www.patonga.me - A website about Patonga - fishing, wildlife, flora and local events. Take a look.

Hi Aaron, I am a manufacturer of jewellery displays, cutlery.cufflink, jewellery box displays etc, and have lined many boxes over the years. It's dependant on your choice of cloth, as to the method you should use.
For cloth such as leather, suede, felt, you need a good contact glue or spray glue to adhere the material to the cardboard. Apply the contact glue (using a brush) to both surfaces and leave to tack for 2-3 minutes. Make sure you press down your cloth as the glue is drying and it will last longer.
Using a spray glue is also good. It must be high quality otherwise it either won't last or won't stick. Then use hot melt to attach your cardboard to your wood. The cheap bunnings type hot glue gun is only good if you're quick enough with setting it as it tends to harden up fairly fast. A professional glue gun is far more effective but rather expensive

Hope this helps,