"We know Ca glue has a shelf life. But will it still "work"?" Topic

Follow up to a question I've asked many times on the TMP forums and have gotten much excellent advice and guidance from you.

I followed the advice of putting my Ca glue in a mason jar in the fridge with some silica packets. Worked wonders for the past year and a half, kept my super glue perfectly strong and usable.

I've gotten to a simpler place where now I only keep one bottle of Ca glue on hand at any one time (which I write the purchase date on), and then I just use it for up to a year while keeping it in the fridge. After the year is up I chuck it and get a new one. Supposedly that keeps the glue within its window of usability.

But my OCD brain was wondering. I did glue some modeling stuff back in 2015 and early 2016 with Ca glue that was several years old and had never been refrigerated. I remember that the glue DID bond, but it took more time and was more difficult to achieve the bond.

So the question is – if you use Ca glue that is "beyond its suggested life" but it still bonds, does that mean that basically it still works with a super glue-strength level bond but just takes longer to bond? Or will stuff like that not be bonded properly and eventually fall apart? Reason I ask is that the stuff I glued in 2015 still appears to be assembled with no sign of any of it coming apart some three years later. I used it for stuff like gluing paper banners to plastic flag poles and minor plastic components bits to the outside of a castle, etc.

Obviously once Ca glue dries out and solidifies it can't be used because its solid and useless. But what if you use old Ca glue that's still liquid but way past its "useful life"?

OCD-level question I know! Thanks… :)

I have an old bottle of Gorilla Glue brand "superglue" (includes a flexible additive) that's over 10 years old. It flows a little slower and thicker, but the bond is fine. I built my 3D chess set with it. It won't take a shock, but all that's meant is that my plastic boards don't break, just the glue! Typically sets in a couple of minutes. No fancy storage, just capped in its plastic bottle.

Might I suggest that if you aren't using a bottle of CA within a year, you're not doing enough modeling.

…"not doing enough modeling"? That's a rather arbitrary thing to say isn't it?

A bottle of Ca glue goes a LONG WAY. I built an entire Warhammer army of 120+ models with vehicles and characters, and I barely lowered the level in the bottle I had from 2017! I mean the line barely moved.

More recently I also built two entire core boxed sets of Star Wars Legion and also a bunch of 3D-printed terrain, and the AT-ST and Airspeeder, and again that was like 60 models +terrain. And again the line in that same bottle moved barely a fraction of an inch.

Exactly how much modeling "should one do" in thr course of a year? The other issue is that I'm not only using Ca glue. I'm also using plastic glue for many things, as well as Liquid Nails, etc. over the course of that year. There is no way I could feasibly go through an entire bottle of Ca in a year, even the smaller bottles would be a stretch.

I could flip the argument and say that if you're going through an entire bottle of Ca glue in one year that you're doing TOO MUCH modeling. :)

Baranovich
You are obviously not getting enough glue on your fingers.
Try harder lad. :)

@Stryderg,

LOL

…so back to the nub of the original gist though. Will "out of date" Ca glue still achieve a bond? Is it that the bond simply takes longer to form because the glue is aged?

I guess you would know when a container of Ca glue is truly done, when you go to glue something and there's NO bond achieved no matter what you do. Well of course that's obvious!

"…"not doing enough modeling"? That's a rather arbitrary thing to say isn't it?"

That WAS intended as humor; my apologies, sir, if I left that open to misinterpretation.

…dang, no I should apologize for my ignorance sir. I immediately assumed you were speaking literally. You know what happens when you assume. Something I need to work on as I become wiser in my adult life as it were:)

It's all good!

I use the Gorilla Superglue brand CA.

link

I use a bottle in under a year and never had one go bad at that rate. I guess I must do just the right amount of modeling