What's the best way to glue/adhese the street baseplates to a plywood table?

Question

I'm building a Lego city, and I want to permanently glue the road onto the table. But I don't want it to be "lumpy", or melt, and I want to make sure that the baseplates will not come off the table, whether it be water or indirect heat (such as sunlight). A friend suggested furniture glue, but I'm not sure that'll be strong enough or flat enough.

Any ideas welcome.

Answer 1

You could always put a screw through a 2x2 plate and use it to fix the corners, the rounded corners on the road plates won't be damaged, and you only lose a very small, cheap part.

Answer 2

I mounted baseplates to a sheet of plywood in order to hang a mosaic as follows:

1. Roughly sand the plywood and the backs of the baseplates.
2. Squirt a generous helping of Liquid Nails on one of the surfaces.
3. Lay out your baseplates on the plywood using regular plates as spacers (i.e., attach plates across the boundaries between two baseplates in order to maintain correct spacing.
4. Randomly distribute plate elements across the surfaces of the baseplates.
5. Clamp a second piece of plywood across the top of the plate elements.
6. Let dry/cure for 24 hours.
7. Remove all of the plate elements.

The reason for step (4) is to create a level surface on which the top sheet of plywood can press when clamped.

Answer 3

LEGO plates are made from ABS plastic, as are plastic shower surround materials. Buy a caulk tube of shower surround adhesive (I have used loctite power grab from Home Depot $5). Scuff the back of the LEGO plates with some sandpaper and apply the adhesive with a fine notched trowel and slap it on your wood ;) Gently press any lumps out. To date I've made 4 LEGO tables like this and it works wonderfully.

Answer 4

Have you considered using velcro-strips? You can cut it to whatever size you want and it won't permanently damage your basepalces like glue wood. And there is also various versions of two-sided tape. Some of them are very strong and can even hold picture-frames on walls. So they should definitely hold baseplates down.

Answer 5

I have had success with super glue (LocTite). I recommend it because:

1. You don't need much glue to get it solidly attached. This means, if you are careful, no mess or cleanup, and no worry of bulging or unevenness of the plate.
2. It adheres extremely fast, so there is no need for clamping. You can just press it together by hand for a half a minute.
3. If you don't get some edge or corner adhered properly, super glue comes with a long nozzle that will allow you to patch it up.
4. The bind should be strong without needing to rough up the surfaces. It makes the job quick & easy.
5. Common: almost any sort of store, even a dollar store, is likely to have it.

Important: Do not ignore what the other answers say about using a block attached to two plates to get the spacing between them right. If you butt the plates directly against one another, they will be too close to attach a piece to both; and if you put very much of a gap between the plates, they will be too far apart.

Answer 6

I used double sided vinyl flooring adhesive.

Answer 7

I used spray-on contact cement (the kind where you spray both surfaces, wait for them to get tacky, and then press together).

It worked okay but the baseplates slid out of alignment over time and started coming off around the edges.

If I did it over again, I would use nuts and bolts after first aligning all the baseplates with each other using small plates, like Windfire though not necessarily through the plates. The important thing is they be well tightened and evenly spaced. And if I needed to fix or replace a baseplate for some reason then that would have been easier with bolted-on plates as well.