Which Selleys adhesive do you need, and how do you choose?

Selleys groups its adhesives into seven sub-categories, and the one you need is decided less by what you are gluing than by how the bond has to behave: how fast it must grab, how much weight it must carry, and whether it will ever get wet or hot. As Selleys puts it, having the right adhesive matters not only for getting two materials to bond, but for keeping them bonded.

The range is designed with specific uses in mind, and that choice of use also affects cure time. Some adhesives only work on certain materials, while others are formulated to be more resilient to temperature changes and variable humidity. Start from the constraint that will break the job — instant grab, load-bearing strength, or weather exposure — and the sub-category follows from it.

How to choose: the four questions that decide it

Do you need an instant bond?

Some adhesives take longer to dry or cure. When you need something that bonds almost instantly, Selleys directs you to the contact adhesives. They work on a wide range of materials and are better suited to bonding large, flat surfaces, though they can be used for smaller projects too. They also hold up under extreme conditions: Selleys Fix&Go Kwik Grip, Kwik Grip Horizontal, Kwik Grip Vertical and Kwik Grip Waterbased are all heat resistant up to 130°C.

For small, fast repairs rather than large surfaces, the super glue range is the other instant option — Fix & Go Super Glue sets in just 10 seconds.

Does the bond have to carry load?

For load-bearing repairs, Selleys points to the Araldite epoxy adhesives, which are able to support weights of up to 150kg. They dry clear, which makes them suitable for use on a wide range of surfaces and materials.

Where the load is structural rather than a repair — fixing panels, mouldings or fixtures to a building — the construction adhesives are the right family instead.

Is the job timber?

Many Selleys adhesives are suitable for bonding wood and other materials, but there is also a dedicated wood glue range for woodworking projects. Selleys Aquadhere Exterior bonds stronger than most woods, is weatherproof, and does not stain timber. Selleys Aquadhere Durabond is a solvent free adhesive suitable for bonding wood to almost any other material, and is heat resistant up to 140°C.

Flooring is treated separately again. Whether you are working with strip and parquet flooring or engineered strip and sheet timber flooring, Selleys has an adhesive designed for easy spreading, fast curing and high bond strength. One instruction here is worth following exactly: when bonding to concrete, use Selleys Liquid Nails VBS Vapour Barrier first, to prevent the transmission of moisture vapour from the concrete to the timber floor. Skipping that step is how a correctly glued floor still fails.

Is it an odd material, or an odd repair?

The all-purpose and multipurpose adhesives are the extensive middle ground, ensuring there is a fix available for almost any project — from the fast-setting Fix&Go Supa Glue through to Selleys Shoe Fix and Sole Fix for weather resistant repairs to your favourite shoes. Where the material is genuinely awkward — plastics, footwear, anything going in or under water — the specialist glue range is the place to look.

The sub-categories in this range

• All purpose glues — including Fix & Go Multi Grip, a fast-drying adhesive for minor repairs that works on a variety of materials, and Power Grip, a strong, flexible non-drip formula suited to vertical applications.
• Construction adhesives — the Liquid Nails and Pro Trade families, plus Hold Up and the Point Works roof tile pointing compound.
• Contact adhesives — the Kwik Grip range, in horizontal, vertical gel, spray, high temp spray and crystal clear versions.
• Epoxy glue — the Araldite two-part range, from the 90-second Rapid through to Ultimate Bond, which holds up to 200kg and sets in 5 minutes.
• Super glue — fast-setting glues in bottle, brush-on, gel, precision and single-shot formats.
• Specialist glue — All Plastics, Marine Flex for sealing and bonding above and below the waterline, and the two shoe repair adhesives.
• Wood glue — the Aquadhere range in Interior, Exterior, Quick Set and Durabond.
• Other glues — the 3 in 1 Adhesive, Sealant & Gap Filler and Easy Tack reusable pressure adhesive.

The safety divide across the adhesive range

The four questions above get you to a sub-category. There is a fifth question none of them answers: how hazardous is the product once the cap is off. The spread across this range is the widest on the site — from adhesives carrying no classification at all to one with eight hazard statements including suspected carcinogenicity — and, critically, the spread is widest within a family, not between families. The name on the bottle is not a guide.

Group	Products	Classification
Respiratory sensitiser — Danger	Aquadhere Durabond	Eight statements: H334 may cause allergy or asthma if inhaled (Cat 1A), H351 suspected of causing cancer, H332 harmful if inhaled, H373, H335, H317 (Cat 1A), H315, H319
Corrosive hardener — Danger	Araldite Super Strong, Fix & Go Araldite 5 Minute	Part B hardener: H314 causes severe skin burns (Cat 1B / 1C), eye damage Cat 1, H317. Super Strong's hardener ships as Dangerous Goods Class 8, corrosive
Eye damage — Danger	Power Grip	H318 serious eye damage, H317 sensitisation Cat 1A, H315, H335
Highly flammable — Danger	Kwik Grip Crystal Clear, Kwik Grip Horizontal, Kwik Grip Spray, Kwik Grip High Temp Spray, All Plastics, Shoe Fix, Fix & Go Shoe Repair, Fix & Go Multi Grip	H225 highly flammable liquid (or H222/H229 for the aerosols, Dangerous Goods Class 2.1) with H336 drowsiness or dizziness and eye irritation
Warning	The whole super glue range, Aquadhere Quick Set, Marine Flex, Araldite Extra Time (resin part)	Super glues: H227 combustible, H315, H319, H335. Quick Set and the epoxy resins: H317
Not classified as hazardous	Aquadhere Interior, Aquadhere Exterior, 3 in 1 Adhesive, Sealant & Gap Filler, Easy Tack	No signal word, no hazard statements

The Aquadhere range is the sharpest example on this site of a brand name spanning the whole hazard scale. Aquadhere Interior and Aquadhere Exterior are not classified as hazardous at all. Aquadhere Quick Set carries a single H317. Aquadhere Durabond carries eight hazard statements and is, by its own page's description, by a wide margin the most heavily classified adhesive in the range. H334 is the one that matters: respiratory sensitisation means the airways can learn to react, after which the reaction is generally permanent, is triggered by far smaller exposures than the one that caused it, and worsens with each contact. It is the mechanism behind occupational asthma. Four bottles, one brand name, and the precautions run from none to an organic vapour respirator.

"Solvent free" is not the same as "safe". The description above correctly notes Durabond as solvent free and heat resistant to 140 °C. Solvent free is a statement about volatile organic content; it says nothing about sensitisation or carcinogenicity, and Durabond carries both. Where the job is ordinary interior or exterior joinery, Aquadhere Interior and Exterior do it with no classification at all — reach for Durabond when you genuinely need to bond wood to something that is not wood, or need the heat resistance.

On a two-part epoxy, the hardener is the dangerous half, which is the opposite of what most people assume. Araldite Super Strong's resin is Warning — skin and eye irritation, H317. Its hardener is Danger, H314, causes severe skin burns, with eye damage Category 1, and it ships as Dangerous Goods Class 8, corrosive. Fix & Go Araldite 5 Minute is classified the same way. In practice people squeeze both beads onto the same piece of card and mix with the same stick, so the hardener's classification governs the whole operation: nitrile gloves and eye protection, and wipe up a spill of Part B rather than leaving it on the bench. Both parts also carry H317, so gloves are not optional even for the resin.

If the constraint is a household with children, an asthmatic, or a confined space, four adhesives here carry no classification at all: Aquadhere Interior, Aquadhere Exterior, the 3 in 1 Adhesive, Sealant & Gap Filler and Easy Tack. Between them they cover interior and exterior timber, general gap filling and bonding, and reusable temporary sticking.

Comparing the adhesives on the numbers that decide the job

Across families, the number that decides an adhesive is how long it gives you to position the piece, and that is a different figure from when the bond is finished. Set time and full cure are published unevenly here; several products have no specification table and are left out rather than guessed at.

Product	Family	Set / working time	Full cure
Super Glue Stand Up	Super glue	10 seconds	Approx. 12 hours (initial cure 30 minutes)
Fix & Go No More Mess	Super glue	10 seconds	Approx. 12 hours (initial cure 30 minutes)
All Plastics	Specialist	30 seconds	See product page
Super Glue Adjustable Gel	Super glue	30 seconds	24 to 48 hours
Araldite Rapid	Epoxy	90 seconds	See product page
Fix & Go Shoe Repair	Specialist	1 minute working time	See product page
Araldite Super Strong	Epoxy	5 minutes	See product page
Aquadhere Durabond	Wood glue	About 10 minutes working time	Up to 24 hours (clamp 4 hours)
Kwik Grip Vertical Gel	Contact	Open time 20 to 40 minutes	24 hours
Araldite Extra Time	Epoxy	60 minutes	See product page
Aquadhere Exterior	Wood glue	See product page	Clamp 30 minutes softwood, 1 hour hardwood

The epoxies are the only family where working time is the product choice. Araldite Rapid sets in 90 seconds, Super Strong in 5 minutes, Extra Time in 60 — the same chemistry sold three ways, at a spread of forty to one. That is the axis to choose on, and it is invisible if you pick on strength, because all three are epoxies. A fiddly assembly with several parts to align is an Extra Time job; a snapped handle you can hold for two minutes is a Rapid job. Choosing Rapid for the fiddly assembly is the usual way an epoxy repair ends up with the parts set crooked.

Set time is not strength, and the gap is largest exactly where people trust it least. Super Glue Stand Up grabs in 10 seconds and reaches full cure in about 12 hours, with an initial cure at 30 minutes. Super Glue Adjustable Gel grabs in 30 seconds and takes 24 to 48 hours — two to four times as long — because the gel is formulated to let you move the piece. Adjustability is bought with cure time in both directions. Whichever you use, the repair that fails is the one loaded ten seconds after it grabbed: the ten seconds is when it stops sliding, not when it will carry weight.

Common questions about choosing a Selleys adhesive

Which glue bonds fastest?

Contact adhesives give an almost instant initial bond across large surfaces. For small repairs, Fix & Go Super Glue and Liquid Nails Extreme Grab are both described as setting in 10 seconds.

Which glue is strongest?

For load-bearing repairs Selleys points to the Araldite epoxy range, which supports weights of up to 150kg. Araldite Ultimate Bond is described separately as holding up to 200kg.

What is the difference between a contact adhesive and a construction adhesive?

Contact adhesives are for bonding large, flat surfaces with an almost instant initial grab, and they do not become rigid when dry. Construction adhesives are for building substrates and structural fixing. If your two surfaces are sheets that need to meet face to face, that is contact adhesive work.

Which Selleys glue can I use outdoors?

Within the wood glues, only Aquadhere Exterior and Aquadhere Durabond are weather resistant and suitable for exterior use. In construction adhesives, Liquid Nails Exterior is specifically designed for outdoor use and can withstand heat, water and UV. Always check the individual product page — exterior suitability is a property of the product, not of the category.

Which ones handle heat?

Fix&Go Kwik Grip, Kwik Grip Horizontal, Kwik Grip Vertical and Kwik Grip Waterbased are all heat resistant up to 130°C. Aquadhere Durabond is heat resistant up to 140°C. Kwik Grip High Temp Spray is described as having heat resistance to 90 degrees along with salt water resistance for extreme heat, exterior and marine environments.

What should I use for gluing timber flooring to concrete?

Use Selleys Liquid Nails VBS Vapour Barrier on the concrete first. It prevents moisture vapour transmitting from the slab into the timber, which is a failure the flooring adhesive on its own will not stop.

Is there a glue that works on plastics?

Selleys All Plastics, in the specialist glue category, is described as giving an extra strong bond on all plastic surfaces for DIY and industrial use.

What can I use on shoes?

Selleys Shoe Fix and Sole Fix are described as weather resistant repairs for footwear, and Fix & Go Shoe Repair is listed for soles, heels and leather. Shoe Fix is described as setting in 24 hours.

Do I need a temporary adhesive?

Easy Tack is a multi-purpose reusable pressure adhesive for use where you want a temporary bond, and is used to mount posters and other lightweight objects.

Is Selleys an awarded brand in this category?

Selleys states it was named Australia's Most Trusted Brand in the "Glues & Construction Adhesives" category in the 2024 Reader's Digest Annual Trusted Brands Awards, and that this was the sixth consecutive year it received the title.