Hi Alan, I've seen other forums suggest UHU Hart for this purpose, is that what you mean? As for CA, I've always found it's not good for plastics, or at least certain plastics, so I probably wouldn't chance it. This is one reason I asked the question about the difference between celluloid and abs, maybe ca works ok on one but not the other, I don't know.
Thanks Mike
Hi Mike. As you know, I've just used red pearl Chinese celluloid binding for the first time on a soprano uke. I actually really like the finished effect on that instrument. Before starting, I contacted UHU technical department for their advice on a suitable glue and somewhat to my surprise their first answer was epoxy! Now I always get into a mess with epoxy on fiddly jobs and didn't really want to use it, so went back to them for more suggestions. They came back with either UHU Hart or UHU Allplast, both readily available in the UK from eBay. I went with Hart, because it has some form of nitro in its formulation which I thought might be helpful for gluing celluloid.
If I was going to use ABS, I suspect Allplast would be the one to try.
I carried out some tests by gluing small pieces of celluloid binding to some scrap oak. I tried epoxy, CA and UHU Hart and frankly I couldn't tell much difference in the adhesion. I was able to flick all the samples off the wood by using the edge of a chisel, but since Hart was the least messy for me to use (and with no prospect of gluing myself to the uke as would surely have happened with CA) I went with that.
I followed Beau Hannams suggestion of gluing in the purfling strip first with titebond using ABS binding as a backing. That worked very well and I'll be doing it again.
Update - just found the 2nd reply from UHU:
"both UHU Allplast and UHU Hart could work. Although, UHU Allplast is usually used to cold-weld glueable synthetics it would work on wood, too. If you use this adhesive the celluloid piece should not be too thin since there will be a superficial dissolution of the material. This bond would retain some elasticity.
UHU Hart also works with your materials, but would, as the name suggests, create a very stiff bond. The connection between the materials would be strong, but heavy vibrations or thermal expansion in the materials could lead to detaching of the glue layer from one of the materials.
If you want to avoid adhesives with organic solvents, UHU Max Repair extreme could be an alternative. This adhesive cures with the humidity from the air, works in almost all applications and stays a bit more elastic (which you will not notice in thin layers. "
Reading that again maybe Allplast should have been my first choice, though I vaguely recollect having already ordered a tube of Hart before I received the reply!