Removing Gorilla Glue from camera?

wildbill · Oct 11, 2006

I contacted gorilla glue and was told that there aren't any solvents that will remove their glue, only sanding or scraping. I've got a 3inch patch of it on the aluminum bed of my Wehman where the previous owner had installed a large 2 way level. I've heard paint stripper will work but i don't want to remove any finish. Will it remove the finish? What should i do?

thanks

vinny

Dave Parker · Oct 11, 2006

I would contact Wehman and ask them to let you know what would not harm the finish on their camera, but it sounds like your up a creek if the gorilla glue company said their is no solvents that will disolve the glue..

Dave

phfitz · Oct 11, 2006

wildbill,

Gorilla glue is NOT waterproof, try some really hot water on a rag and let it soak. A lot safer than paint stripper.

Good luck with it

kiku · Oct 11, 2006

wildbill said:
I contacted gorilla glue and was told that there aren't any solvents that will remove their glue, only sanding or scraping. I've got a 3inch patch of it on the aluminum bed of my Wehman where the previous owner had installed a large 2 way level. I've heard paint stripper will work but i don't want to remove any finish. Will it remove the finish? What should i do?

thanks

vinny

Hi,
You could try the water treatment but I truly doubt it will work. We have an inexpensive kitchen knife made in Japan where the blade was becoming loose in the handle. I dribbled some Gorilla Glue down into the handle and come the next day it was good to go. This was a few months ago and with daily use and washing it in hot soapy water, the blade is still firmly in the handle. Howard Tanger

copake_ham · Oct 12, 2006

Call the manufacturer back.

Tell them you're a doctor and a patient has just walked into your office with two fingers stuck together with their Gorilla Glue.

Ask them if the "patient" will require surgery and re-hab or if there's an "easier" way to dissolve the glue?

Dave Parker · Oct 12, 2006

copake_ham said:
Call the manufacturer back.

Tell them you're a doctor and a patient has just walked into your office with two fingers stuck together with their Gorilla Glue.

Ask them if the "patient" will require surgery and re-hab or if there's an "easier" way to dissolve the glue?

George, I love ya man, you always think of the solution!

By the way, I am planning on a trip to the Big apple and would really like to taste the best slice in the town, could you recommend a place to go, please?

Dave

Chazzy · Oct 12, 2006

Dave Parker;376365By the way said:
Best slice of pizza or best slice of cheesecake? I understand that they make both in New York, although I'm reliably informed that God always gets his pizza in Chicago.

BrianShaw · Oct 12, 2006

Chazzy said:
...although I'm reliably informed that God always gets his pizza in Chicago.

I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but God now prefers sauerbraten from a little place in St. Louis.

David H. Bebbington · Oct 12, 2006

wildbill said:
I contacted gorilla glue and was told that there aren't any solvents that will remove their glue, only sanding or scraping. I've got a 3inch patch of it on the aluminum bed of my Wehman where the previous owner had installed a large 2 way level. I've heard paint stripper will work but i don't want to remove any finish. Will it remove the finish? What should i do?

thanks

vinny

We don't have gorilla glue in the UK - not enough broken gorillas to make it worthwhile. Is it the same as superglue? If so, worth trying acetone (aka nail-polish remover).

Regards,

David

BradS · Oct 12, 2006

If the doctor story doesn't work, I'm pretty sure an end mill would get the job done.

copake_ham · Oct 12, 2006

Dave Parker said:
George, I love ya man, you always think of the solution!

By the way, I am planning on a trip to the Big apple and would really like to taste the best slice in the town, could you recommend a place to go, please?

Dave

Dave,

I generally just order (when my wife will let me, that is) from a local joint. But if I were to recommend a place it would John's on Bleeker (the location of the original one -there are two branches now).

To quote Zagat's review of John's:

"Pizza the way God intended."

Note: Expect crowds and waits, for the obvious reason.

As to Chicago pizza. It's really a different style (thick crust) and has its fans. Here in NYC we use the term "Sicilian" to differentiate a thick crust pie from the more traditional "thin".

I stopped contributing to pizza comparison threads because they can get nastier than those about beer, cheese or religion!

rwyoung · Oct 12, 2006

copake_ham said:
Call the manufacturer back.

Tell them you're a doctor and a patient has just walked into your office with two fingers stuck together with their Gorilla Glue.

Ask them if the "patient" will require surgery and re-hab or if there's an "easier" way to dissolve the glue?

An emergency room doctor would probably just slowly peel the fingers apart, possibly using a scapel to trim the top dermus layer as they went. Works great for cyanoacrolate glues as they don't have good sheer strength.

I think Gorilla Glue is a polyurethane glue and may be mildly soluble in acetone so alternately soaking and gently rubbing or scraping may remove the material.

Photo Engineer · Oct 12, 2006

There are two super solvents often used in chemistry for stubborn jobs.

One is dimethylformamide, and the other is dimethylsulfoxide.

They are both very powerful and both will carry chemicals directly into the human body via the skin. As such, dissolving asprin in dimethyl sulfoxide and then rubbing on a sore joint or the head will cause immediate relief from an ache. It was severely restricted in sales for that reason. It was once used rather freely in sports and drug use. I should say it was once abused freely.

In any event, with proper precautions, using double gloves, you might be able to dissolve the glue with them. Another caution, it can strip off paints and ruin finishes depending on the nature of the finish. Test them before use and be very careful of the liquid before AND after use.

After use, the liquid will be quite toxic due to all of the things the liquid dissolved during use.

This is a way out suggestion using cutting edge solvents. Don't get 'cut' using them. Take great care. Please note that I'm posting this as a last ditch possible solution. I take no responsibility for misuse of these two solvents.

Also, highly cross linked or high molecular weight glues sometimes cannot be dissolved except by a strong acid or base and you don't want to use that on your camera.

BTW, as a side note, DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide) all by itself is not very toxic at all, but DMF (dimethyl formamide) can be toxic under some conditions, but by itself with no extremes, it is also low in toxicity. We used DMF to clean our labware at Kodak. With acid or base and heat it can decompose into methyl alcohol and formic acid.

Acetonitrile is a third possible super solvent. It is similar to those above but is less polar, as the above solvents dissolve freely in water.

PE

RichSBV · Oct 13, 2006

I don't personally know of any way to remove Gorilla (polyurethane) glue, but I've seen suggestings of freezing it and chipping away, and with not much luck.

It is heat sensitive and can be easily melted. You do have to get about 150 degrees to do it and it makes a mess worse than thick honey on a kitchen table...

This may be of some interest:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-383300.html

Loose Gravel · Oct 13, 2006

It might be easier to dissolve the camera. Gorilla glue is polyurethane. Once dried, it stays that way. It can only be removed mechanically. Try a nylon scrub pad as long as that doesn't mess up the camera. I don't know how your camera is finished.

Mark Fisher · Oct 13, 2006

RichSBV said:
I don't personally know of any way to remove Gorilla (polyurethane) glue, but I've seen suggestings of freezing it and chipping away, and with not much luck.

Freezing is a good suggestion. You can find an aerosol can of "freezing stuff"
at Radio Shack (if you are in the states or another electronics supply place). It is used to help de-bug electronic circuits sometimes. I've used it to machine little rubber bits. Hit the glue with the freezing stuff and try to scrape it off with a plastic putty knife from the hardware store.

donbga · Oct 13, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
TWe used DMF to clean our labware at Kodak.

PE

PE,

Can you tell me more about this?

Thanks,

Don Bryant

Photo Engineer · Oct 13, 2006

donbga said:
PE,

Can you tell me more about this?

Thanks,

Don Bryant

Every day at shift change, we put a basket of dirty labware in the hall next to our door with a card in it with our room #. The cleaning detail picked the basket up and delivered it to the cleaning room where a large 'dishwasher' was located. Instead of water, it used DMF to clean the labware.

The next shift change, we picked up our clean labware.

Enough?

PE

donbga · Oct 13, 2006

Photo Engineer said:
Every day at shift change, we put a basket of dirty labware in the hall next to our door with a card in it with our room #. The cleaning detail picked the basket up and delivered it to the cleaning room where a large 'dishwasher' was located. Instead of water, it used DMF to clean the labware.

The next shift change, we picked up our clean labware.

Enough?

PE

Well I was interested in how the DMF was used, etc. as I would like to clean lab ware in my darkroom more throughly.

Photo Engineer · Oct 14, 2006

donbga said:
Well I was interested in how the DMF was used, etc. as I would like to clean lab ware in my darkroom more throughly.

Oh, I understood you. But you see, thats all I know about the process. Now you know as much as I do.

OTOH, in graduate school, we cleaned our pyrex and stainless steel ware by soaking them in isopropyl alcohol saturated with potassium hydroxide. Nice strong mix. It removed everything.

They probably don't allow this sort of thing anymore.

PE

ronlamarsh · Oct 15, 2006

Gorilla glue

I would try the cheapest nail polish remover available as this has the most solvent in it. If it indeed dries to a polyurethane and acetone doesn't do it a straight blade scraper that uses a razor blade may be your best bet. I haven't seen an adhesive yet that doesn't respond to the nail polish remover. as far as the finish goes I really don't know but it should be unharmed by solvents if it is aluminum

Lee L · Oct 15, 2006

I usually clean up gorilla glue squeeze out from joints with a well-tuned piano plane or chisel plane. A good sharp chisel and a guide block might also work. I doubt a solvent will work that well.

Lee

P.S. It's the plane that's well-tuned, not necessarily the piano.

bdial · Oct 15, 2006

Gorilla glue not contained in a joint isn't all that strong, scraping, or cutting, or sanding or perhaps all three, would be a lot easier than resorting to a solvent, even if you can find one that would attack it.

wildbill · Oct 15, 2006

I'm waiting for Bruce's response before i try paint stripper and so far nothing else has worked. Thanks for the tips. I don't really want to scrap my beautiful camera with a chisel. If it comes to that, i'll leave the glue where it lays. After all, it's just glue.

vinny

richard ide · Oct 16, 2006

Hi
Yesterday I applied some Gorilla Glue to a piece of aluminum. This morning I scraped it off pretty well using a scraper made of hardwood and a heat gun. The only caveat would be if the finish on the camera is powder coating. I did not need to get it very hot so a hair dryer would probably work.
Hope this helps.
Richard

Removing Gorilla Glue from camera?

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