I learned a bunch about superglue (cyanoacrylate) while building my banjo, and I use it for fly tying all the time. The company I work for also stocks it for retail and mail order sales, we use it for tacking parts down while constructing wind turbines. Here's what I've learned -- your mileage may vary.

- It does have a shelf life of only about one year. We only stock enough for about 4 months of sales, then order more, back order problems be darned. So only buy as big a bottle as you can use up in a year, except....

- thin superglue becomes thick superglue as it ages. So don't throw out your bottle if it starts to thicken, it'll still work fine as thick grade.

- the little tubes from the supermarket may have sat there for who knows how long. Plus, they contain fillers and less actual cyanoacrylate, in my opinion. I buy all my glue from 'professional' suppliers, like the local hobby store or an instrument repair shop. You can verify this by taking a dab of supermarket glue and a dab of the good stuff, and hitting them with accelerator. The good stuff will get EXTREMELY hot and give off a white cloud of vapor, enough to burn you if the glue was on your hands.

- I never, ever snip off or use the applicator tip. This increases the shelf life dramatically, and eleminates clogged applicator problems. Instead....

- buy disposable pipettes. When banjo building, I bought them in bulk from chemistry lab equipment suppliers since I used so many per day. Now for fly tying I get them (for a higher cost) from instrument repair shops like Stewart MacDonald [url=http://www.stewmac.com/:5ca5d]http://www.stewmac.com/[/url:5ca5d] , search them for 'pipette' and you'll find the exact ones I use.

- I simply unscrew the entire superglue bottle lid, and suck up enough into the pipette for a night's tying, then close the bottle up. It will last for hours in the pipette, keep it upright on your bench with the bulb down. For sucking up thick superglue, snip the tiny nozzle off with scissors down to the wide part of the pipette.

- the tiny nozzle gives you superb control on how much glue you put down. Picture shows a pipette with 4 oz glue bottle for scale. NOTE: pic shows a bottle of thick grade next to the pipette, to use the thick grade I'd snip the pipette down!

I hope that helps -- try the pipettes and you'll never snip another bottle applicator again. You can also re-use the pipette for thick glue after the nozzle finally clogs with thin.

And if you've never used accelerator -- pick up a spray bottle of it, too. Amazing stuff. We've fixed injured dogs and cut fingers with superglue and accelerator, too -- don't try this at home!

;~)
DANBOB


[This message has been edited by danbob (edited 03 January 2006).]