{"id":613,"date":"2013-05-08T20:52:03","date_gmt":"2013-05-09T03:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inkofpark.wordpress.com\/?p=613"},"modified":"2024-09-01T20:13:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T02:13:11","slug":"glue-on-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/?p=613","title":{"rendered":"Glue on Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last summer I assigned my son, then six years old, to do an \u201cinquiry.\u201d Inquiries are guided studies of something, and empirical inquiries are like mini science fair projects. At the time I asked him to pick a topic he selected \u201chow does glue work?\u201d Exploring this at the chemistry level seemed like too big a reach for a 6 year old, so we morphed the question into \u201chow well do different kinds of glue work?\u201d<\/p>\n

It turned out to be a really fun experiment. We gathered all the not-too-toxic glues from around the house. The oxiclean container has methyl cellulose inside.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He glued several trials of each paper together as crosses. Then, he brought the ends of the paper together and clamped, one piece of paper to a board hanging over the edge of the desk, and the other piece to bucket. In the picture below you can see the test setup. The paper is like two U-shapes that are glued where the come together. They don\u2019t loop inside one another, they are held together only with glue. The glue joint area was approximately 1 inch square.<\/p>\n

\"20120708-03\"<\/a><\/p>\n

He added weight to the bucket until the paper failed, and then weighed the bucket.<\/p>\n

The glues and results are in the table below. The \u201cr\u201d indicates that the paper ripped, otherwise the glue joint failed across the surface. The best and worst are boldface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/strong><\/td>\nGlue Name<\/strong><\/td>\n\n

Average Weight Held (lbs.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

Trial 1<\/strong><\/td>\nTrial 2<\/strong><\/td>\nTrial 3<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nElmer\u2019s Glue Stick<\/strong><\/td>\n1.52<\/strong><\/td>\n1.096<\/strong><\/td>\n1.234<\/strong><\/td>\n1.222<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nPVA:Methyl Cellulose 1:1 vol.<\/td>\n2.37<\/td>\n3.064<\/td>\n2.888<\/td>\n2.062<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nElmer\u2019s Glue-All<\/td>\n3.39<\/td>\n3.270<\/td>\n3.944 (r)<\/td>\n2.928<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nGorilla Glue<\/td>\n2.27<\/td>\n5.438<\/td>\n3.180<\/td>\n0.746<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nMethyl Cellulose<\/td>\n4.20<\/td>\n4.468<\/td>\n4.392<\/td>\n3.752<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nPVA<\/td>\n3.65<\/td>\n3.966<\/td>\n2.768<\/td>\n3.824<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
8<\/strong><\/td>\nTitebond III<\/strong><\/td>\n4.25<\/strong><\/td>\n3.824<\/strong><\/td>\n5.180<\/strong><\/td>\n3.576<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
9<\/td>\nDAP Strongstick<\/td>\n1.54<\/td>\n1.460<\/td>\n1.562<\/td>\n1.576<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
10<\/td>\nCyanoacrylate (Super Glue)<\/td>\n4.15<\/td>\n5.180<\/td>\n3.966 (r)<\/td>\n3.284 (r)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Most of these results fit my expectations. There were a few surprises though.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Gorilla glue (polyurethane) was typically quite strong, but once was very poor.<\/li>\n
  • Methyl cellulose is usually considered a weak glue, but it performed almost as well as the best of them. Maybe it is strong in our dry climate and weaker in more humid climates?<\/li>\n
  • Glues that soak in well (super glue and methyl cellulose) seem to have an advantage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The test was essentially performing a sort of peel-off strength test. In many ways I think the setup was quite good. The stresses on the glue joint are fairly typical for what materials are stressed with.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Last summer I assigned my son, then six years old, to do an \u201cinquiry.\u201d Inquiries are guided studies of something, and empirical inquiries are like mini science fair projects. At the time I asked him to pick a topic he selected \u201chow does glue work?\u201d Exploring this at the chemistry level seemed like too big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-making","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1274,"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/613\/revisions\/1274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.inkofpark.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}