Eric,
You rarely
bond acrylic, you usually
solvent weld it. MEK is the most common solvent for "welding" acrylic, though acetone is also used. Commercial
solvent weld products are generally just solvent (MEK or acetone) with some percentage of acrylic dissolved to make them thicker.
It is essentially
required that edges to be
solvent welded be cut with a high-turn-speed (side-cutting) router bit. Just about any other cutter will leave cracks along the edge of the cut that will destroy your work. The edge needs to be about a dead smooth as possible. If you are using "thin"
solvent welder, it will wick in between the mated edges (just remember the polishing compound to clean up the areas where the solvent "hazes" nearby areas). The resulting bond will be as strong as the acrylic itself.
I have had good luck with (it used to be
WeldOn, but is now)
SciGrip general plastic adhesive when I need to
bond acrylic. I have stayed away from cyanoacrylic (CA) adhesives as they generally have poor impact strength. I am currently working a project where we are bonding ABS. The
ZAP brand of CA adhesives are surprisingly good. A .44 inē bond area absorbed three 75 in-lb blows made at 120° increments quite nicely. The same parts were then loaded into a vise where they underwent a 200 lb-in bending load for 30 minutes with no degradation. Some of the very high-priced (and highly advertised) CA adhesives would have
failed the impact load tests as if there was no adhesive in the joint! (
http://www.zapglue.com/) The ZAP-CA products are generally available from hobby shops --
not industrial supply houses.
I hope this helps.
