Apollo Takes Your Superglue To New Heights
By Jordan Ross
When it comes to MacGyvering, the only thing better than duct tape — besides paper clips and gum — is superglue. Working in special effects shops, I picked up a trick to make this miracle tool even more versatile. Its short name is zip-kick or zip-kicker; in fancy terms it’s a cyanoacrylate accelerator, and it allows you to build up large quantities of glue and have them harden very fast, so you can make fillets.
Zip-kick also comes in handy if you’re working on a project and you just can’t wait for the superglue to set up. Yeah, I know, impatient — but if you’re gluing a lot of small parts, it’s a no-brainer. You can buy in bulk and fill your own spray bottles, or you can buy pre-filled bottles.
Cyberbond makes all kinds of great accelerators — my personal favorite, the Apollo BLAST 6001 accelerator, seems to have been updated to 6001H — but it’s kind of hard to find so you’ll have to do some searching or check your local specialty shops. I found one site that’s offering 2oz bottles for $5.57.
Cyberbond [Official Site]
March 11th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Check the labels/MSDS - Some of these are just rubbing alcohol (Isopropyl) - with a cheesy applicator and 10x markup.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I use this for building RC airplanes. One thing I have notice though is that it tends to cause the glue to bubble and lessens the strength of the glue joint…not that a super-glued joint is all that strong to begin with, but I do let the joint setup on their own when it is a little more critical type of joint.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:28 pm
Can I get high faster off the fumes?
March 12th, 2009 at 5:32 am
Extra Super Glue…
I am not a big glue fan, it tends to be the least desirable and strong way to connect things, and given a choice I would much rather go for a mechanical joint,especially in no porous materials like glass and metals.Having said that, I must admit that I…
March 12th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Sounds good - if its going to work fast why shouldn’t it work even faster.
@ BigEdJr - the faster a glue cures the weaker it is in the long run - if you are looking for strength you should be using slow drying glues.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
Oh boy, a way to glue my fingers together even faster! Seriously though, this would be great where I work as we often have to make quick fixes on the fly and anything that helped speed up the repair would be welcomed.