Colouring Super glue

[Not your average framer]

Just in case you haven't already guessed, I'm working on another of my new handfinishing ideas and I'm trying to find out how I can add colour to super glue. Unfortunately this is not an easy thing to do! If you add anything alkaline it will cause the glue to set solid, or if you add anything acidic if it unlike to be able to set when you want it to set.

The idea started with a visit to the local garage to get a plastic part on the car repaired. To my surprise they did it with superglue and a special powder which sets the super glue and bridges / reinforces gaps between broken parts needing to be joined back together. It didn't take long to find out how to make the powder, super glue is very cheap to buy and I have already proved that most of my idea will work.

Adding colour to super glue is the last part of the puzzle, but unfortunately I've not got very far with solving this last bit. Any ideas please!

Thanks in anticipation,
Mark

[Jonny2morsos]

Won't the garage tell you? It's not like you are going to be doing car repairs in competition with them if they tell you how it is done.

[Not your average framer]

Thanks for the suggestion. It would be nice if they knew. Unfortunately the garage don't need to colour super glue, to them it's just a structural adhesive, but I need to put the colour into the glue.

[Jonny2morsos]

Sorry, I read it that the powder they used contained colour

[GeoSpectrum]

Food colouring?

[standenfineart]

How about dry pigment ground to a paste with superglue release agent (presumably solvent) and then mixed with the glue or perhaps good old Mixol. Never tried either but possibly worth experimentation.

[Not your average framer]

I could easily experiment with different things, but I was hoping for some theoretical basis for confidence regarding the chemical compatibilty of the pigment material with the super glue.

I'm thinking that it would be a good start if any pigment I use would be at least non-organic in origin and I guess I would have to mix some proportion of dry pigment in powder form with the alkaline activator / filler powder, instead of trying to pre-colour the super glue.

[Not your average framer]

I've given up on the colouring idea. I've just been doing a bit of testing using the latest ingredients which I have just bought. The fully set finish of the glue provides a more than adequately well keyed / textured surface for paint adhesion. I had expected otherwise, but this now means that I can manage without adding colour to the glue.

The normal viscosity super glue which I bought proved to be too runny for what I'm trying to do, so my next move is to buy some high viscosity super glue and see if it will do what I am hoping.

[standenfineart]

[quote="Not your average framer"]I could easily experiment with different things, but I was hoping for some theoretical basis for confidence regarding the chemical compatibilty of the pigment material with the super glue.

One thing I learned from my time as a microbial biochemist is that theoretical confidence was no match for practical experiment.

[IFGL]

I would consider printer toner, I think it is made from polymers making it neither acidic or alkaline, not sure though a quick Google search should help.

[silvercleave]

Hello Mark, have you tried this page: www.stewmac.com/tsarchive/ts0082.html found it by googling "coloured super glue"

Quite an interesting site

Hope you are well

Ian

[Not your average framer]

Hi Ian,

Thanks for that. I had a look at it, but I'm already needed to switch to a high viscosity version of superglue and the addition of any other liquid to the superglue would reduce to viscosity and I'd be back where I started.

I haven't got around to getting any high viscosity superglue yet, but I have a good feeling about how this is gonna work out.

All the best,
Mark