The History of Super Glue

Super Glue was accidentaly discovered in 1942. The researchers at Kodak Laboratories were trying to develop a new plastic for gun sights for the war effort. They decided that their experiment was a failure because all they got was some material that would stick to everything..

In 1951, Harry Coover and Fred Joyner, two researchers at Eastman-Kodak saw the potential of something that 'stuck to everything' and essentially rediscovered cyanoacrylates. The product was first sold commercially in 1958.

In the 1960s super glue was used as a spray for field wound closure in Vietnam. The issue here was that something was needed as a stopgap to close soldiers' wounds until they could be gotten proper medical treatment. A spray was developed for this purpose.

Since that time super glue(cyanoacrylate) has been used in hundreds of different applications. Everything from lifting fingerprints in forensics to wound closure in medicine to lifting 3000 pound cars into the air.

The product can be found under dozens of trade names now and numerous viscosities. (That is how thick or thin of a liquid it is.)

The commercial/industrial type products like Mister Glue are generally stronger than off the shelf super glue and have the benefit of lasting longer in the container. This is because the solvents have been distilled out. This makes them a pure form and the solvents don't dry out the glue more quickly. Also, because of this these higher end super glues will actually bond materials that super glue would ordinarily melt. One example of this would be styrofoam.

There is more information on super glue...

And dozens of uses of Mister Glue