Solvent for glue

[Stepside]

My neighbor needs to disolve or at least soften some artwork that has been glued. It could be "super glue" or epoxy or? It is clear and seems to have been somewhat viscous when applied. The part is clued to glass. Any thoughts?
Thanks in advance

Pete

[PTSideshow]

Send these people a question. on the FAQ page.http://www.thistothat.com/cgi-bin/glue.cgi?lang=en if you don't know the type glue used you will have to try some. If it's slightly flexible or soft you might have luck using two x-acto knives and cut off since one side is glass.
Cold sometimes will work but you will have to tread lightly. If it will fit in the freezer, overnight some super glues will get brittle and a sideways twist sometimes the parts will separate.

There is a remover for super glues available at the big box stores.

As for epoxy you can try acetone, lacquer thinner or some of the other hot solvents that are used in fiberglass work.


If it's one of the gorilla glue clones, good luck.

[ckelloug]

Things that will get rid of epoxy are very different from things that will get rid of superglue.

Loctite makes a superglue remover as do others and it is often available at hobby stores. There was a thread here about epoxy remover a while back. It recommended a commercial product whose name I forget which is composed of N,N-dimethylformamide.

I found this page on getting rid of epoxy while trying to find my old reference:
http://yarchive.net/chem/epoxy_solvent.html

Noting comments that were made earlier, the big question is what the artwork is made of and whether it would be destroyed. Gorilla glue is polyurethane based and I know from experience that polyurethanes can be removed by concentrated sodium or potassium hydroxide. Unfortunately, unless the substrate is something like glass or gold , KOH will ruin its day.

--Cameron

[Evan]

Acetone is the solvent for cyanoacrylate glues that have polymerized. In general single part sealants and glues polymerize when they set up but don't crosslink or have a low proportion of crosslinks.

In general 2 part glues like epoxides are materials that crosslink a lot as they harden. This dramatically changes the properties as a new material is formed. Solvents that work to remove or clean up the unreacted resins are generally useless once the resin is crosslinked.

Many plastics, polymers and elastomers can be dissolved by methylene chloride. You can probably buy some at a plastics dealer or a glass shop that does work with acrylics. You need to be careful with MC and should use it out side. It is considered a bad actor because it has very little smell and can be present at noxious levels without smelling alarmingly strong. It is extremely volatile and so evaporates very quickly which can contribute to high levels if used inside.