The glue that we use in our everyday life has been of great help to undertake small repair jobs. They usually remain hidden between two or more substrates out of sight to the customers.
Ancient adhesives vs. modern adhesives
According to archeologists and historians, adhesives have been used for thousands of years. In ancient times, people made their glues from whatever they found in the world around them—such things as fish skins, sugar and animal products boiled in water. We use some of these natural adhesives even today, though we are more likely to use artificial glues made in a chemical plant. It is so obvious that modern glues are chemical products from the chemicals—phenol formaldehyde (PH), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyvinyl acetate (PVA), and cyanoacrylate (“super glue”). Many modern types of glue that are called synthetic resins (a gooey substance found in pine trees and other plants) were one of the first widely used adhesives.
Different types of glue:
The five basic types of glue are as follows:
- Solvent glues
- Water-based glues
- Two-part glues
- Animal glues
- Cyanoacrylate glues (superglues)
Benefits of using Glass glue:
A urethane adhesive which is commonly known as the glass glue has the following benefits:
- It meets all long-term durability requirements.
- It is ready to use as no heating is required.
- The urethane adhesives are 3 to 50 times stronger than ancient adhesives.
- Urethane adhesives bond well with smooth surfaces like glass and rougher surfaces like paints and automotive metals.
- It is chemical, UV and water-resistant.
- It has a high tensile strength in automotive applications.
- Urethane adhesives have lap shear strength in automotive applications.
- Urethane is non-conductive and they also help in reducing electrical interference.
Applications of glass glue:
- They are found very useful in bonding backlights, windshields, quarter glass, and other stationary glass
- Other uses of urethane adhesive include attaching the hardware to glass and backfilling to install reveal moldings.
How does adhesive work?
Two forces help a glue to stick to a surface namely,
- Adhesive force
- Cohesive force
When you spread the adhesive, it first wets the surface you apply it to. Lots of very weak electrostatic forces between the molecules in the surface and the glue molecules hold the two surfaces together. For glass glues to work well like this, you have to spread thinly and wet the surfaces very well. There is no actual chemical bond between the glue and the surface it’s sticking to, just a huge number of tiny attractive forces. The adhesive molecules stick to the surface molecules like millions of microscopic magnets.
Overall Insight
When you squeeze the glue from the tube, it spurts out and you can usually smell the very strong acetone as it evaporates. Once it’s gone, the polystyrene molecules lock together to make strong chemical bonds between the surfaces. Thus, you can find the glue to be very useful even in your day-to-day life. So choosing the right glue will help you get desired results.
