Stick on it!

Glues, used by all for every small thing, have been around for a long time. Over time, it has evolved and a large variety of glues have entered the market for specific uses. For many centuries, animal glue was used for fastening two pieces of wood together. This was the first choice, by many furniture manufacturers and industrialists who dealt in wood work.

A revolutionary new method of sticking two pieces of wood together, wood adhesive is not only effective but also a fast way of doing so.  Be it for the use of a carpenter or for any other purpose, wood glues are being used very often.  There are various forms of wood glues that perform different functions.

One major disadvantage of wood glue is that it has poor ‘gap-feeling’ ability and hence, they bond strongly to wood, but not to itself. To work around this problem, many wood-workers use tight-fitting joints, which involve using small amounts of glue for large pieces of wood.

Most of the glues and adhesives get categorized in the following manner; Epoxy, Urea-formaldehyde, Yellow wood glue (which is made of Aliphatic resin wood glue), Polyvinyl acetate glue (commonly known as PVA glue), Polyurethane glue, Cyanoacrelate (famously known as super glue) and Silicon rubber (RTV).

Water Based Adhesives

Water based adhesives are those that require water as a carrier or as a diluting medium. They set as the water evaporates or as the water is absorbed by the substrate. Again, within this category there are many types available in the market. Here is a list of water-based adhesives:

·         Vegetable glues

As the name suggests these glues are made out of the starch that is naturally present in vegetables. It is traditionally known as dextrin adhesives and is rather cheap glue which can be used for sticking together pieces of paper etc, as it is not very strong.

·         Animal Glue

As mentioned above, animal glue has been around for the longest time and was probably the first kind of glue formed by man. There are two types of glue present within this category, they are; hot animal glue (which is made of animal parts that are processed) and casein glue (which is made out of milk).

·         Resin/Latex Cements

Two very important types of industrial glue, they are completely different from each other. Resin Cement on one hand is made out of Polyvinyl acetate, as mentioned above, it is also called PVA glue. It is used to hold together, paper, wood, plastics and foam amongst other substances.

Whereas Latex glue is made of latex and other elastomers in a water-based emulsions. These types of glues are called cements due to their way of holding together two parts. The glue is allowed to dry. Once it dries, it forms a layer which behaves like two-way contact cement hence, holding together the two pieces of wood or any other substance.  Usually these two are used for holding together veneers, due to their cement-like property.

As per the latest tests done on glues, the mechanical resistance of various glues’s join strength has been determined. Here is how they vary as per the different type of glue;

Type I PVA waterproof glue – 100%

Epoxy glue – 99%

Liquid Hide glue – 79%

Hot animal glue – 76%

Polyurethane – 58%

As you can see, Type I PVA waterproof glue is the best choice as its join strength is that of 100%. You can all the variants of glues over the internet as well.

Author Bio:

Erin is an active content writer and likes to share his view on adhesive products in UK. Here he is sharing his experience about hotmelt adhesive suppliers, glue manufacturers, hot melt adhesives manufacturers, hotmelt glue and Water based adhesives.