Freaky CA glue behaviour

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Tools
1

Yesterday I pulled out my bottle of gap-filling superglue (purple label) and dropped a drop on a playing card in order to dip into the drop with a piece of styrene rod and a funny thing happened, within a few seconds the glue drop on the card started to fog up and within seconds it was totally crystalized solid.
I looked at the bottle and the consistency of the glue inside the bottle appeared normal. It wasn’t a new bottle but then again it was not that old either. I tried another drop an a scarp piece of styrene and the same thing happenend. After many tries spead over several hours, I concluded that the glue had simply gone bad for un unknown reason…stuff happens I guess…BUT WAIT !
The nex day, out of curiosity, it put a drop from the same bottle on an identical playing card and to my amazement the phenomenon had dissapeared, the glue stayed clear and liquid for several minutes just like it normally does !
I worked all evening with the same bottle and everything was back to normal.
After 33 years of modelling, can someone explain to me what has happenend here ? I have never seen CA glue go so bad so fast and certainly not come back to normal the next day.
Was it a planetary alignment thing or am I just going insane ?

Has anybody else ever experienced this phenomenon ?
If not I guess I will have to give a call to the producers of “Unsolved Mysteries”

Jimmy Cancino
Valleyfield, Québec, Canada

2

Was it abnormally Damp or Humid???

3

I agree. High humidity would cause the glue to fog and cure almost immediately. In addition, if the card was wet somehow, or if there was any alkalinity in the card, the same would occur.

Gip Winecoff

4

how does humidity and alklinity affect the curing of CA ? how does the stuff work anyway? a classmate of mine was asking me and i couldent give her an answer.

5

Here you go reggie, this will explain how the stuff works, and why humidity/ dampness will affect the curing:

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question695.htm

6

does this mean if i drizzle water over CA it will accelerate it ? then whats in accelerator?

7

It could be used as an Accellerator. It causes it to get even harder than Accelerator does. It also causes it to fog as well. (Which accelerator may not cause)

8

Accelerator contains (usually) an organic solvent carrying an organic amine (a base), which is a source for lots of those hydroxy ions explained in the link above. Because water is a weak base–as well as a weak acid–it doesn’t do a real good job as an accelerator.

Gip Winecoff