The biggest problem with all the SuperGlues (cyanoacrylates) after sticking your fingers together is it goes off in the tube quickly. It needs moisture to activate and no matter how hard I’ve tried I always find it has gone solid when I need it a few months later. So you buy a tube use it once and then end up binning the rest which is annoying from a lack of sustainability view, expense of needing to buy more and the fact you never have any when you need it.
I read somewhere that if you put in a deep freeze it lasts a long time and does not set. My food freezer is one of these modern ones that never fills with frost. 9 years later it’s still completely frost free and sits at -18C. I put 3 tubes of pound shop super glue in there after using a few drops back in 2021.
I needed it yesterday and remembered there was some lurking in the freezer and took out the pack from behind some Salmon sides bought early ready for Christmas. The glue was still liquid and not solid or frozen. The plastic dispenser was too cold to flex. I gave it 20mins to warm up and applied a few drops. It stuck with some considerable vigour. So storing superglue in a deep freeze certainly works to preserve the life of the glue and I can recommend it. As it has lasted 4 years so far and there are 2 unopened dispensers, I may never need to buy super glue again!
Recently, I’ve been buying the loctite hard plastic bottles that contain the gel type. You squeeze the grey plastic bits on the sides and a few blobs come out. There is a metal pin in the cap that keeps the nozzle clear. I’ve actually managed to fully use a couple of bottles, it keeps so well. Not the cheapest, and definitely over-engineered, but it works.
Nine months ago I picked up a 2 oz bottle of Bob Smith Industries Maxi-Cure Extra Thick cyanoacrylate glue (BSI-113). It’s been on my bench since then, seeing use every few weeks or so, and still going. I’ve even left the cap off overnight once or twice. To my surprise, somehow it still flows well and cures to give a strong bond.
Really??!!?? well blow me! been told all 45 years I have spent on this earth that cyanoacrylate was designed as a medical adhesive! I mean, we all know its bloody good at it.. lost count of the times ive stuck a bit of my body back together with it!
It does have medical uses but it wasn’t invented for that. You can read the Wiki article about it. Normally you need to take any Wiki article with a pinch of sale and verify it as some are not true. But as this cites the patents which you can look up and shows the guy who received recognition for his work then it’s probably reasonably accurate.
I knew a 10-pin bowler, a semi-pro, and he used lots of cyanoacrylates in his fingers. During an all day tournament your fingers swell up. So the finger holes in the ten pin balls would be drilled over size to allow for this. But the start, your fingers are too small so he would apply copious amounts of superglue to build up the size of his fingers. As the day went on and his fingers swelled, he would sand off the hard glue with the sandpaper strip on a box of Swan matches. He’d wash his hands in acetone after the matches to soften and aid removal of glue left. The lengths people go to to be top of their chosen “thing”.
A much less painful way and more accurate way was to use liquid skin (it came in a bottle with a brush applicator) applied in layers. Once dried, you then dusted with Easy Slide (which was normally used on the shoes) until each layer peeled off, which happened sort of automatically.
Having the balls drilled properly helps overcome this, and in my best season with two pro-drilled balls that suited my action, I experienced no finger swelling at all. Averaged 229 across the season, won the Wigan open, and qualified for the UK open but never achieved the magic 300 with a PB of 279 (9 spare in the first then all strikes, its less stressful when you miss the first frame).
That was many years ago and after that year, my left knee started swelling so I cut down from 4 times a week to once a week and the year after stopped altogether.
I also had checked this, as I was told many years ago, on a First Aid course that superglue / cyanoacrylate could be used to close a wound in an emergency.
I found this article, I can’t be sure how credible the source is, but it does say cyanoacrylate was used with success for wounds during the Vietnam war.
73 Chris
