Super Glue finish question

I started doing some studying to answer Chuck's question about thinning the adhesive. It is interesting to see just how many different polymer "building blocks" are used in the multitude of formulations available. The "fuming" superglues are more likely "cyanoacrylates" than MMA's, it turns out. Thus, I have no sure answer, Chuck; I have no expertise in polymer chemistry. Perhaps they could chop up partial polymers back into smaller units, thus lowering the viscosity.

What little I can say is that superglues are what are called "neat" liquids. They are not a solid dissolved in something the way airplane glue was dissolved in toluene. Thus, you can't really "thin" them the way you can thin paint by adding a solvent. You start out with little subunits, *S*, *S*, *S*, etc, which are liquids in their own right. These combine to form extremely long chains, -S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-S-, etc., which end up solid. In some cases, the viscosity of the adhesive is controlled by "partial polymerization", or *S-S-S-S*, which will make them more viscous but still liquid.

That is one way the viscosity of the stuff in the bottle is controlled. The other way is determined by what "S" actually is, such as MMA, one of various cyanoacrylates, etc. Then there are "co-polymers" where they actually mix different monomer subunits together. It's quite a complicated field of chemistry, far removed from mine.

Sorry I can't verbalize this better.
 
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