What Glue to Use on Stucco

Stucco predominately refers to a mixture of cement, lime and sand that is used for a wall and ceiling coating. It is not usually used as a primary building material, but can be used to cover concrete, brick, cinder blocks or other less visually appealing materials. Similar to most cement products, many adhesives do not work effectively on stucco.

Stucco

Stucco can be used as an adhesive on top of dry stucco, but it does not work in the same way as most adhesives. You can apply a layer of wet stucco on top of the dry stucco and press an object you want to adhere to the stucco into the wet layer. When the stucco hardens, the object will be held in place. The main downside to using stucco is that the layer used to adhere the object will not be even with the rest of the stucco. You may have to put an entire layer of stucco on the entire surface to even it out. However, stucco would allow you to attach larger, heavier objects to stucco than would normally be possible with most adhesives.

Cement Bonding Agents

Cement bonding agents are specifically designed to work as an adhesive for cement-based materials, such as stucco. The bonding agent bonds to the cement within the stucco, which forms the largest percentage of the material. However, bonding agents are not very effective, if at all, on any material that is not cement-based. The main purpose of a bonding agent is to help attach fresh cement to already dry cement. It is an effective adhesive for this purpose, but has little use for general attachment purposes.

Masonry Sealants

One of the major reasons you would need an adhesive for stucco is to apply a patch to prevent a crack or hole from leaking. Masonry sealants do not act like an adhesive, but they can work in place of an adhesive in this situation. The sealant is applied to the crack or hole and it hardens to prevent water from leaking. Any sealant labeled for concrete, cement or masonry should work on a stucco surface.

Super Glue

Super glue works on stucco, like it does on most surfaces. It is not necessarily the best choice compared to the other options, but it works. You should not use it in specialized situations, since it does not work as effectively. For example, a masonry sealant is better at fixing a crack in stucco than using super glue to attach a patch to the crack. It is a general option if none of your other choices seem particularly well suited for a task. For example, if you wanted to glue plastic stars to a stucco ceiling, super glue may be a fine choice.