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  #1   Report Post  
Wally
 
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Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

A week ago or so someone posted something about shelf life for glue. I
was surprised to learn that the regular white and yellow PVC glue had
a shelf life of about one year...

I tought when glue was too old, either it makes a film, dries in the
bottle, change color or consistency, etc...

I purchased a bottle when I was a teenager for my first woodworking
project... That bottle got packed up in a box and remained forgotten
for around 20 years... The time I was going through my years in a
small appartment and paying all the more pressing bills...

When I bought my house and started to dig through all those forgotten
stuff, I found my bottle and put it back to use as I started
woodworking again... It's been there for almost 18 years...

Guess what? No difference from the first day I used it. Same strengh,
same open time, same consistency, etc...

Now the inevitable question: Are you kiddin' when you all say one year
shelf life max?

Wally
  #2   Report Post  
Scott Lurndal
 
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Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

Wally writes:
A week ago or so someone posted something about shelf life for glue. I
was surprised to learn that the regular white and yellow PVC glue had
a shelf life of about one year...



Now the inevitable question: Are you kiddin' when you all say one year
shelf life max?


Quite possibly the glue companies desire you to throw it out at that
time and buy a new, fresh bottle. I've used bottles of yellow PVA glue
over 5+ year spans with no glue problems.

Poly glue? Don't know, but once it is open, it should probably be used
as soon as possible, otherwise inevitably moisture in the air will help
the glue to cure in the bottle.

scott


Wally

  #4   Report Post  
Leon
 
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Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

Storage conditions will factor in with each set of circumstances.
As for your 18 year old glue, it is too early to tell if it is still OK or
not. You may have tested it by doing a glue up and it appears fine but glue
deteriorates over time any you test piece may not hold up. It could
possibly fail in 10 years. Glue is CHEAP and it should hold your projects
together long after you are gone.



  #5   Report Post  
George E. Cawthon
 
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Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)



Leon wrote:

Storage conditions will factor in with each set of circumstances.
As for your 18 year old glue, it is too early to tell if it is still OK or
not. You may have tested it by doing a glue up and it appears fine but glue
deteriorates over time any you test piece may not hold up. It could
possibly fail in 10 years. Glue is CHEAP and it should hold your projects
together long after you are gone.


I have Weldwood Plastic Resin glue, Elmer's carepenter's glue, and
Elmer's resorcinol glue that are old. None give a shelf life on the
container. I think I saw 1 year for Plastic resin (a powder). In any
case, all have been used long after they were purchased and continue
to performed as expected. There is no reason to believe that glue
will fail some time after the application if it doesn't fail
immediately after or during application. All glues probably fail over
a period of time and under adverse conditions.

The world is so full of crap about products and applications that it
is difficult to know what is true, but some is such obvious bull****
that you wonder why people believe it. As an example, periodic wheel
alignment. Wheels are either aligned or not, and the only way to
become unaligned is to bend, break, or wear out a part. If you don't
need a new part for the alignment then you didn't need an alignment or
more likely it wasn't aligned correctly the last time.

Because some things do need periodic maintenance and some things do go
bad after a period of storage, it is easy for manufactures to prey on
the gullible by insisting on certain periodic maintenance and on
replacing older products.

A 1 year or six month warranty (or shelf life) is probably more about
legal protection and a desire to sell more product than any truth
about the product.


  #6   Report Post  
Wally
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

I'm not trolling. I've better to do with my life.

I'm serious. I have this yellow PVC glue made by "Lepage". It's called
carpenter's glue (3000 pound). I've use it when I was 15 while taking
woodworking class.

I packed it up and never used it until just recently. I'm now 35 and I
started to use it last year. Make your own math... I can even send it
to you if you don't believe me.

As the others mentionned, I think also it's all in the interest of the
glue manufacturers to let people believe their product have to be
replaced on a regular basis.

Wally




On Fri, 2 Jul 2004 17:22:24 -0400, (J T)
wrote:

Fri, Jul 2, 2004, 4:19pm
(Wally) claims:
snip I purchased a bottle when I was a teenager snip It's been there
for almost 18 years...
Guess what? No difference from the first day I used it. Same strengh,
same open time, same consistency, etc... snip

My, my, what a remarkable memory you have. And, apparently a
testing lab.

Now the inevitable question: Trolling is we Wally? What kind of
glue you talking about anyway? Miracle Glue?

JOAT
"That's right," he said. "We're philosophers. We think, therefore we
am."
- From Small Gods


  #7   Report Post  
Leon
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)


"George E. Cawthon" wrote in message
...

I have Weldwood Plastic Resin glue, Elmer's carepenter's glue, and
Elmer's resorcinol glue that are old. None give a shelf life on the
container. I think I saw 1 year for Plastic resin (a powder). In any
case, all have been used long after they were purchased and continue
to performed as expected. There is no reason to believe that glue
will fail some time after the application if it doesn't fail
immediately after or during application. All glues probably fail over
a period of time and under adverse conditions.


From the age of 17 to 40 I was in the automotive business and retired at 40
from upper management. To keep my sanity during those years I took up
Woodworking seriousely when I was 23. I puttered around with it since I was
10. Now I am self employeed, dont have to work but choose to. I design and
build custom furniture or just about anything wood related including
repairing furniture. Almost always the furniture fails because of the glue.
This furniture that I work on ranges in age of 60 years old to 4 years old
and all in between. For me, there is a reason to believe that glue fails
prematurely.

The world is so full of crap about products and applications that it
is difficult to know what is true, but some is such obvious bull****
that you wonder why people believe it. As an example, periodic wheel
alignment. Wheels are either aligned or not, and the only way to
become unaligned is to bend, break, or wear out a part.


Taking into consideration my previous profession, I tend to agree with your
observation. More often than not, a symptom that indicates the need for an
alignment is a bad tire. The tire can be brand new and still be bad. That
said, if the nuts and bolts that tighten the tie rod end sleeves loosen for
some reason or were not tightened properly, a pot hole in the road can knock
the alignment out with out necessarily damaging any front end parts. I do
not subscribe to periodic wheel alignments unless tire wear indicates the
need. Simply having the alignment "checked" is a good idea when having new
tires mounted. The caster or camber can be out of spec's and will cause
premature tire wear and not necessarily be noticed by a pull or drift of the
vehicle.

If you don't
need a new part for the alignment then you didn't need an alignment or
more likely it wasn't aligned correctly the last time.


That is normally true.

Because some things do need periodic maintenance and some things do go
bad after a period of storage, it is easy for manufactures to prey on
the gullible by insisting on certain periodic maintenance and on
replacing older products.

A 1 year or six month warranty (or shelf life) is probably more about
legal protection and a desire to sell more product than any truth
about the product.


Yeah, like you said, probably, but maybe not.


  #8   Report Post  
Leon
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)


"Wally" wrote in message
...
I'm not trolling. I've better to do with my life.

I'm serious. I have this yellow PVC glue made by "Lepage". It's called
carpenter's glue (3000 pound). I've use it when I was 15 while taking
woodworking class.

I packed it up and never used it until just recently. I'm now 35 and I
started to use it last year. Make your own math... I can even send it
to you if you don't believe me.

As the others mentionned, I think also it's all in the interest of the
glue manufacturers to let people believe their product have to be
replaced on a regular basis.



Time will tell, won't it. For me, I spend the extra couple of bucks to rule
out glue failure several years down the road that may be caused by an
expired shelf life. But, if your glue lasts you 18 years, you may never use
enough that it would matter.


  #9   Report Post  
J. Clarke
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

George E. Cawthon wrote:



Leon wrote:

Storage conditions will factor in with each set of circumstances.
As for your 18 year old glue, it is too early to tell if it is still OK
or
not. You may have tested it by doing a glue up and it appears fine but
glue
deteriorates over time any you test piece may not hold up. It could
possibly fail in 10 years. Glue is CHEAP and it should hold your
projects together long after you are gone.


I have Weldwood Plastic Resin glue, Elmer's carepenter's glue, and
Elmer's resorcinol glue that are old. None give a shelf life on the
container. I think I saw 1 year for Plastic resin (a powder).


The data sheet says "1 year minimum" whatever that means. What's the
maximum I wonder?

In any
case, all have been used long after they were purchased and continue
to performed as expected. There is no reason to believe that glue
will fail some time after the application if it doesn't fail
immediately after or during application. All glues probably fail over
a period of time and under adverse conditions.


Kermit Weeks flew his deHavilland Mosquito to Oshkosh, Wisconsin in 1990 to
be put on display in the EAA museum. It was more than 50 years old at the
time, and if you contact the EAA museum they'll likely tell you that if
it's not currently flight-ready the glue is not the reason. If glue will
hold a combat aircraft together for over 50 years then that "period of
time" is long enough that I'm not going to worry about it and you don't get
conditions much more adverse than a WWII bomber experienced.

The world is so full of crap about products and applications that it
is difficult to know what is true, but some is such obvious bull****
that you wonder why people believe it. As an example, periodic wheel
alignment. Wheels are either aligned or not, and the only way to
become unaligned is to bend, break, or wear out a part. If you don't
need a new part for the alignment then you didn't need an alignment or
more likely it wasn't aligned correctly the last time.

Because some things do need periodic maintenance and some things do go
bad after a period of storage, it is easy for manufactures to prey on
the gullible by insisting on certain periodic maintenance and on
replacing older products.

A 1 year or six month warranty (or shelf life) is probably more about
legal protection and a desire to sell more product than any truth
about the product.


Really depends on the product and also on what you're doing with it. Would
you want to fly in an airplane that had been stuck together with out of
date adhesives? Would you want a surgeon to stick your body parts together
with out of date adhesives (surgeons do use adhesives, usually some variant
of superglue, instead of sutures or staples in some situations these days).

A while back I did some preliminary testing on a group of coatings,
attempting to select one to be used in a high-wear area on military
aircraft--we had in some cases to buy several gallons to get the quart or
so we needed for our tests. Once purchased the stuff was carefully stored
according to the manufacturer's instructions and if there were no
instructions it was kept refrigerated. That project got put on the back
burner for a while, then got hot again a couple of years later, when I got
a budget to do a full evaluation of one of the coatings. We pulled out
the samples we had and the first thing we did was replicate the preliminary
test. Results were _very_ different. The stuff looked the same in the
can, and seemed to spray the same, but when we started doing measurements
we found that we didn't get as much build per coat, the color was slightly
different, and the durability of the cured coating was _much_ less. This
is stuff that nobody would have noticed if we hadn't been doing tests with
instruments and comparing with previous data--if we had just sprayed the
stuff and put it in service we would never have known there was a problem
until it wore out prematurely. Tried it again from different cans that had
never been opened before. Same result. Checked the shelf life and
according to the data sheet it was 6 months. So we called up the
manufacturer and got some fresh sent out and the properties on that were
what they were supposed to be.

So don't assume because a glue _seems_ to be OK that it _is_ OK. It might
be or it might not. If failure of the joint could result in somebody
getting hurt or in significant property damage then use fresh. If the cost
of failure is small then take chances.

--
--John
Reply to jclarke at ae tee tee global dot net
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
  #10   Report Post  
Wayne K.
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

I have been using Tite Bond II glue from a gallon bottle with no expiration
date on the bottle. I have been using this for approximately 4 years.
I used about a third of it when I purchased it and had less than a half
gallon after the one year expiration date, seems fine to me but what do I
know?
Can anyone out there explain what happens to the glue after a year other
than getting a little thicker ?

I also remember when bottled/canned beer had no expiration date.
Wayne
Columbia MD


"Wally" wrote in message
...
A week ago or so someone posted something about shelf life for glue. I
was surprised to learn that the regular white and yellow PVC glue had
a shelf life of about one year...

I tought when glue was too old, either it makes a film, dries in the
bottle, change color or consistency, etc...

I purchased a bottle when I was a teenager for my first woodworking
project... That bottle got packed up in a box and remained forgotten
for around 20 years... The time I was going through my years in a
small appartment and paying all the more pressing bills...

When I bought my house and started to dig through all those forgotten
stuff, I found my bottle and put it back to use as I started
woodworking again... It's been there for almost 18 years...

Guess what? No difference from the first day I used it. Same strengh,
same open time, same consistency, etc...

Now the inevitable question: Are you kiddin' when you all say one year
shelf life max?

Wally





  #11   Report Post  
Edwin Pawlowski
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)


"Wayne K." wrote in message
Can anyone out there explain what happens to the glue after a year other
than getting a little thicker ?


Can lose holding pwer. Thickeing is a first step in curing.



  #12   Report Post  
Bob G.
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 16:47:32 -0400, "Wayne K."
wrote:

I have been using Tite Bond II glue from a gallon bottle with no expiration
date on the bottle. I have been using this for approximately 4 years.
I used about a third of it when I purchased it and had less than a half
gallon after the one year expiration date, seems fine to me but what do I
know?
Can anyone out there explain what happens to the glue after a year other
than getting a little thicker ?

I also remember when bottled/canned beer had no expiration date.
Wayne
Columbia MD


lol... I am old enough to remember when not a single prescription drug
had an expiration date on the stock bottle... and I was old enough to
drink beer at that time...but I never checked for an expiration date
on the can (my dad was a Steel Worker so If I got caught with a glass
bottle I was in deep do-do)

However I gave up buying large bottles of glue years ago ..Had
problems storing it in my shop over the winter etc... Glue is cheap
and I now just buy fresh glue and toss out the old...

Bob Griffiths


  #13   Report Post  
GerryG
 
Posts: n/a
Default Shelf life for glue (revisited)

Every ten degrees in temp will make a big difference. That includes the
temperature it was stored in for the months before you bought it. Same with
mixed shellac; in a cold climate year-round, I've had that last nicely over 6
years, yet a friend in a warm climate is lucky to get much over 6-months.
GerryG

On Sun, 4 Jul 2004 16:47:32 -0400, "Wayne K." wrote:

I have been using Tite Bond II glue from a gallon bottle with no expiration
date on the bottle. I have been using this for approximately 4 years.
I used about a third of it when I purchased it and had less than a half
gallon after the one year expiration date, seems fine to me but what do I
know?
Can anyone out there explain what happens to the glue after a year other
than getting a little thicker ?

I also remember when bottled/canned beer had no expiration date.
Wayne
Columbia MD


"Wally" wrote in message
.. .
A week ago or so someone posted something about shelf life for glue. I
was surprised to learn that the regular white and yellow PVC glue had
a shelf life of about one year...

I tought when glue was too old, either it makes a film, dries in the
bottle, change color or consistency, etc...

I purchased a bottle when I was a teenager for my first woodworking
project... That bottle got packed up in a box and remained forgotten
for around 20 years... The time I was going through my years in a
small appartment and paying all the more pressing bills...

When I bought my house and started to dig through all those forgotten
stuff, I found my bottle and put it back to use as I started
woodworking again... It's been there for almost 18 years...

Guess what? No difference from the first day I used it. Same strengh,
same open time, same consistency, etc...

Now the inevitable question: Are you kiddin' when you all say one year
shelf life max?

Wally




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