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

Has anyone ever tried gluing the blade of a knife back together with super glue? Is it poisonous once dry?

(Top Tip - Don't try breaking open a coconut with a bread knife)

Not only is it not poisonous, but it is oflen used for minor surgical procedures. Climbers carry it, I'm told, for glueing flaps of skin back onto their fingertips. Also, guitarists.

Hurts like buggery, mind.










Odd simile, that. Doesn't hurt if you're gentle and use enough lubrication.

I wish I'd known that yesterday Ntm. I just closed my eyes as I heard the PING......... of the blade ringing overhead.

I never thought stainless steel could break like that

In my experience the only thing it sticks really well is skin. i doubt very much it would stick part of a knife blade back on.

There are knives and there are knives. Find a shop where professional cooks buy their tools - but don´t be shocked by the prices.
And as to superglue...probably not. The blade will be distorted where it has broken and you won´t get a fit good enough.

It's such nice granular surfaces on the ends of the break though, highamexpat. That and it's from an almost new knife set

This is the actual blade that has broken in half?

No chance, not in bazillion years.

Even if you can get it to stick, one slight bend of the knife and it will break the bond. Consider the diagrams in the following link...
http://www.roymech.co.uk/Useful_Tables/Adhesives/Adhesives.html

Orcus is right. You could stick it back together, and it would hold pretty well against some things, but dried superglue is pretty brittle, and it would just snap off if you tried to cut anything tough with it.

Ah. No. It's the *steel* that's snapped.

Put it this way...if superglue worked well for that kind of stuff...why would we have welders?

I once had a friend who superglued his shoe to his foot. The sole was coming away from the lining, so he want to glue it back to together. And in order to get the shape right he glued it back together while wearing it.

It hurt a lot when he ripped his shoe off half an hour later. Then he had to rip the sock off too.


Geggs

Cheers for that link Orcus, I know it's a far fetched notion, it's just such a perfect break near the handle and I don't know anyone with a Tig welder

I'll give it a go anyway, I'm just taping up a steel rule to act as support. It'll be interesting to see how much stress so little glue will bear

Not sure a tig welder would work successfully on stainless steel Dependant on the quality of stainless.

Interestingly the York Viking Helmet has links of drawn steel wire, pressure welded into links. Something even our most able nuclear engineering welders are incapable of duplicating with modern equipment, aside from drawing the wire of course
All this by a 7th century blacksmith

Just a thought.

As well as, like, probably not working...and being a waste of a good steel rule...won't it make the blade a bit thick?

If you look around, you may be able to find a shop thet sells breadknives. That's the road I'd go down.

(Oh, I see. the rule is just a temporary splint. I'd still buy one, mind!)

Or I've heard that some shops nowadays sell their bread pre-sliced. I'm told it's the best thing since

Well it's setting

(please don't let me end up with steel rule glued to a bread knife, please don't let me end up with steel rule glued to a bread knife, please don't let me end up with steel rule glued to a bread knife, please don't let me end up with steel rule glued to a bread knife, )

I thought that was a risk, and I presumed you'd taken precautions against it. Anything the glue comes into contact with will be glued along with it, to an at-least equal degree to what you intended to stick. One of my flatmates appears not to understand this, and persists in holding one of his models together with blu-tac while the superglue sets. Result? Any attempt to remove the blu-tac inevitably snaps the join.
In my experience with models, the only option is to find some way to balance it precariously at the angle you want, without anything actually touching the join.

What ever happened to polystyrene cement?

Goodness me -

'Applying cyanoacrylate to materials made of cotton or wool (such as cotton swabs, cotton balls, and certain yarns or fabrics) results in a powerful, rapid exothermic reaction. The heat released may cause minor burns, and if enough cyanoacrylate is used, the reaction is capable of igniting the cotton product, as well as releasing irritating vapor in the form of white smoke'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanoacrylate

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystyrene_cement
As I thought, polystyrene cement is generally useful in gluing together plastic, as it's a solvent and so dissolves the plastic into a single lump. It's no good for metal models.
Actually, that's not quite true. I have used it for metal models, but it's really not as good.

A powerful exothermic reaction, you say? I know what I'll be experimenting with tonight!

In between inhaling polystyrene cement, that is.