h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is superglue really as strong as everybody makes out for it to be? I mean, if it really were effectively sticky, surely it would be hardto get it out of the Tube. Wouldn't it stick to the inside of the tube if it was so good??? Help me out!

It is contact to air which allows it to harden. Some superglues are able to hold the weight of a 9 ton truck no bother (and that was seen on Tomorrows World 15 years ago), and I think some of the Challanger tank is held together by superglue....
BCNU - Crescent

About 20 years ago there was a car stuck to a wall about fifty feet up in the air on one of the expressways out of Birmingham. The slogan underneath said "Also fixes teapots" I think it had to be taken down because so many gawping drivers had accidents (and I bet there was a girder holding it up there)

A small amount of moisture on the surfaces to be stuck also helps the glue to set - exposed to air, it can stay liquid for quite a while, but once it's compressed in a thin layer between two surfaces, it can set almost instantly.
I wouldn't be too sure about teapots though - I find epoxy adhesives better for things that are going to get hot and wet, and you have time to get the pieces in the right position before the glue sets.

Personally, I find the choice of adhesives a little depressing - in most DIY stores, you have the choice of half a dozen slightly different kinds of superglue, and a similar choice for varieties of Araldite. Another case of 'anything you want, as long as it's made by the biggest companies'

I've only ever seen my favourite epoxy (U.S. made JB Weld) in two stores in the last ten years, and they were both small independent motor spares shops. Even though it's more expensive, I definitely prefer it to Araldite anywhere 12-24 hour curing time isn't a problem, not least because you can wash it off your hands in seconds with soap and water.

And it's extremely expensive for a very small amount.
(like everything else in DIY really - the last place I knew that sold nails by weight rather than in tiny little packets went out of business this year)

And I certainly wouldn't use a mended teapot to make tea in, but they make good plant pots, and I suppose it would be OK mending the lid.

Superglue is a great thing to have in a first aid kit - I've heard it does get used in A&E departments. Repairs skin wounds great (just make sure you don't end up stuck to the person you're trying to help).
I was told this in a first aid course and now know people who do carry it.

I epoxied my teapot back together a year ago, and it's still going strong. The surface of the glue doesn't appear to have melted or dissolved in any way, and even the first pot of tea didn't taste peculiar. The glue is now safely covered with layer of brown tea deposit anyway.

Regarding selling nails by weight, a friend of mine went to a DIY superstore that actually sold loose nails by weight, all at the same price. He got a bag and filled it with a few pounds of assorted nails, but when he got to the checkout, it turned out that they had to ring each size of nail through the till separately, so they had to sort the mixed bag back into individual piles of similar nails.

Due to my childhood passion for modelling and my extreme infant malco-ordination, I've stuck my fingertips to my eyelids with superglue before (now *that's* painful!) and also managed to flick PVC glue into my eyes on no fewer that three separate occasions. You wouldn't believe that I'm now actually quite good at modelling.

BTW, superglue's crap for gluing lead miniatures together - probably because the gaps between the joins are way too big. Mind you, most of the modelling putty I tried (suppposedly sets 'as hard as rock') was even worse.

Epoxy Resin is usually stronger and more versatile than superglue. It comes in two tubes - bondant and hardener, I think - and you squeeze a bit out of each and mix them together. It's incredibly powerful stuff.

Phil - superglue was used in Vietnam for superficial wounds!

I found superglue (and modelling putty) to be ok for those applications. You've just got to use it correctly

Crikey. My heads gone fuzzy with all the solvent fumes in this forum.

That's where it started, good to know I wasn't imagining it.

Superglue is as strong as the horses hooves that make it!

Nexus *HOW* do you unstick your fingers from your eyelids??? Yeuch!

Problem with superglue is that it is brittle: it's just no good where the broken object is subject to snapping pressue, and its not brill at sticking things with small surface area (Nexus' miniatures, or whatever they were). I favour pritt stick for paper, copydex for carpets, UPVC for card, posters and banners, Evostick for lino and wood, chemical metal (one of those mix and harden jobs) for fridges.

Superglue is good for sticking rearview mirrors to windscreens, though

Painfully, CC. More precisely, by gritting my teeth and pulling. Hard. Ouch. Luckily, my fingertips weren't covered in superglue, but it was still *bloody* painful. It's bad enough when it's one's finger & thumb...

I agree with you on the windscreen & ear-view mirror. It has been necessary in the past for at least one rush repair job on the family Citroen that my parents used to have... It must have been really crappily glued on in the first place, because it broke in the most feeble manner imaginable...

That should, of course, be 'rear-view'. Bloody cack-handedness. Oh, what I wouldn't give for greater dexterity...

I liked ear-view, it was, at least, accurate

I've always thought that its most attractive property was its abilty to rapidly reconstruct damaged items you had no business touching in the first place, such as ornaments, vases, mobile phones, extractor fans, small radios, large radios.....