superglue mishaps

Dec 11, 2007 10 Replies

Last night I had the unfortunate experience of supergluing two fingers together while modeling...I was able to pry them slowly apart, but it got me thinking: if I hadn't been able to pry them loose, how does one "unstick" themselves? Just wondering what chemical(s) I should have on hand if things ever get worse than they did last night.


acetone aka nail polish. make sure it's real nailpolish. it will say.

Pauli G wrote:>Last night I had the unfortunate experience of supergluing two fingers

Shouldn't that be nail polish ~remover~????

, Pauli G wrote:>Last night I had the unfortunate experience of supergluing two fingers

I believe that falls under the provisions of "don't ask, don't tell)

Craig

Hi Pauli, Yes, the first responder was correct, acetone applied to the affected area will release the super glue. I always keep a small bottle near the work bench for just that reason. Here is a mishap I had when s.g. first came available. I had applied the glue to a part and set the bottle down. Obviously, I had to pick up the other part to put them together, so I put the straight pin (used as a bottle stopper) between my lips.....yep, you guessed it I glued my mouth closed as the glue wicked from the pin to my lips. I used the acetone and a Q tip to set myself free. But here's a real horror story. A modeling aquaintance told me that this happened to one of his modeling buddies. The guy had wound fine wire around a section of aluminum tubing to make coil over springs for a model car project. He held the spring with some tweezers to place the spring after he'd applied the glue to one end. Zip! the spring slipped from the tweezers and hit him right in the eye. Naturally, he blinked and glued the spring to his pupil and his eye lids around it. Off to the emergency room and with some fast work they got him freed from the spring and treated to prevent any other problelms. Another modeler told me of one of his friends who had a very large (economy sized) open bottle of s.g. on the work bench and knocked it off into his lap. He had on Bermuda shorts which wicked the glue to his thighs thus glueing him to his pants. He ran to the shower and turned on the hot water and soaked himself. Then grabbed the waist and jerked the shorts off. Unfortunately, he also took most of the skin and hair off the upper parts of his legs from the groin almost to the knees. Why he thought hot water would release the glue is beyond me. The moral to this is keep some acetone within reach when you're using super glue! Cliff

wizz azz! yes, remover. had a crs.....

My wife has been trying to get me to do that for years!

I bought some of this stuff from Model Expo and it works great. See link below:

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"Ol' 45" wrote in news:1abb367f-ecee-4380-b1f9- snipped-for-privacy@i29g2000prf.googlegroups.com:

I've heard that when cyano acrylate glue and cotton come in contact in large enough quantities an enormous amount of heat can be released from the reaction. Maybe that's what prompted him to a quick shower.

A friend of mine tried to glue a loosend shoe sole and the (rather copious) amount of glue used, seeped into the shoe and glued his cotton socks to his foot, causing consideral blistering from the heat!! Not to mention a very hard, and cotton weave shaped foot sole!!

A certain incident did bring home to me that taking the top off the bottle using your teeth can be a bit foolhardy.........

( One hand was full of model, the other holding the bottle )

Luckily, the mouth being moist made the removal of my tounge from the back of my teeth fairly easy!

Acetone (nail polish remover).

Pat

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