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You are here: Home / Misc / Tuesday’s Tip: Removing Superglue

Tuesday’s Tip: Removing Superglue

By Mark Shead 17 Comments

Have you ever gotten superglue all over your fingers and had to live with it for two weeks as it wore off? There is a simple way to take it off, but first, let me tell you a story.

glue-main

When my wife worked in the ER of a large county hospital in Dallas, she saw a lot of very strange cases. One of the most interesting was the guy who came in with his eyes closed. Evidently, his wife had accused him of looking at other women and they got into a fight. Somehow, he decided that he could prove that he wasn’t looking at other women by super-gluing his eyes closed. (I am not making this up.)

After the glue dried, he began to think it wasn’t such a great idea and got some people to drive him to the emergency room. My wife said the doctors and nurses laughed at him for a while and then gave him Vaseline to rub in his eyes.

Petroleum will break down super glue, so you can easily remove it with gasoline. However, a less flammable and less dangerous solution is to use Vaseline to rub the hardened glue off your fingers.

Originally published December 4, 2007.

Filed Under: Misc Tagged With: glue, humor

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. brent says

    December 4, 2007 at 3:32 pm

    huh.

    there you go.

    I get superglue on my hands all the time – I’m a product engineer, always making fiddly little prototypes.

    I wonder if this works for Loctite too… it’s a bit different to your superglue…

    Reply
    • Mark Thrash says

      July 23, 2011 at 12:48 pm

      All:

      I usually do not reply on these forums, but I just glued my foot to a sandal that I repaired with Loctite…the Petroleum Jelly worked like a charm in 5 minutes or less. Just the Equate Wal-Mart brand.

      Thank you!

      Reply
      • Mark Shead says

        July 23, 2011 at 8:09 pm

        Glad to hear it got your foot sandal free! :)

        Reply
  2. chgoguy7 says

    December 4, 2007 at 5:01 pm

    DW-40 works wonders in removing superglue not only from skin, but from many other surfaces as well (although certainly not recommended to put in one’s eyes!).

    Check out the following PDF for 2000 uses for WD-40: http://www.wd40.com/pdfs/WD-40_2000UsesList.pdf

    Reply
  3. Vinod says

    December 4, 2007 at 11:05 pm

    I usually use medical spirit to get rid of super glue. If its on my fingers only I just get myself a “prune fingers” by placing my hand in a warm bowl of water for some time and the glue just peels off.

    Reply
  4. interesting says

    May 20, 2008 at 4:47 pm

    hmmm thanx!i just made a model and my fingers are stuck together 3 ways!

    Reply
  5. drawgs says

    June 25, 2009 at 7:20 am

    works! thanks!

    Reply
  6. marc b says

    November 18, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    That is a great resource for those who fiddle around with super glue, but I am kind of puzzled as to how this relates to productivity. Having a dry spell? lol

    Reply
    • b cram says

      November 24, 2009 at 1:06 pm

      Marc B,

      Was just thinking it might be hard to get anything done with fingers (and / or eyes) plastered with SuperGlue? Just a thought …. :) :)

      B Cram

      Reply
    • Mark Shead says

      November 24, 2009 at 1:57 pm

      Maybe I’m pushing the subject matter envelope a bit. For me, this trick has saved me a lot of time when I do get superglue on my hand. The less time I spend picking superglue off my fingers the more time I have to do other things. :)

      Reply
      • brian says

        November 8, 2011 at 3:08 am

        the hot water works, but using pumice stone speeds it up.

        Reply
  7. Rose says

    November 21, 2011 at 6:29 am

    I have a serious problem. Can someone offer me advise please. I had a fallen toe nail that I wanted to keep for a bit longer so that it wouldn’t look ugly for an upcoming trip so I super glued it on. Alot of it. Not nail glue either but reg stuff. Will it ever come off and will my poor nail underneath still continue to grow? Want it off I but am afraid to try to pull. Please help :-/

    Reply
    • brent says

      November 23, 2011 at 9:57 pm

      don’t stick things to yourself. that’s not clever.

      I think it might come off by itself as it is glued to skin and the skin will eventually come away.

      try getting the wd40 in under it and see if that helps.

      see someone about it.

      Reply
  8. ace says

    March 11, 2012 at 2:53 pm

    Great story , , i just ask my phone for help with superglue brought me here :p lol but great story i made me laugh .

    Reply
  9. Hapless mom says

    August 31, 2012 at 7:00 pm

    I think someone may have gotten superglue or crazyglue on the little metal basket that fits into my kitchen sink. All of a sudden I can’t lift that basket out of the hole in the sink. Not by getting a muscular neighbor to try to pry it up. It will not budge! So I’m unable to clear the sink satisfactorally. I usually lift the basket and make sure there is nothing in the hole that could clog the garbage disposal before I run it. Now that I can’t doublecheck beneath the basket, I’m afraid to run the garbage disposal. Water takes forever to drain from the sink. (The other night I had to wait more than 4 hours to get the level down.) So I’ve been severely limiting my running any water or draining pots when I cook, into the sink. Now every bit of water that goes into the sink gets bailed out laboriously by hand.

    So if indeed the metal basket is “permanently stuck”to the sink drain hole, what can I safely use to dissolve that permanent bond? Acetone, gas, etc. seem like they ,oght cause a fire or explosion when I run the dishwasher. Would vaseline be safe?

    I can’t afford to replace the entire sink with a new one.

    Any suggestions, anybody?

    Reply
  10. Aly says

    August 31, 2012 at 9:28 pm

    Hot water and a pumice, its off in seconds

    Reply
    • brent says

      September 10, 2012 at 9:27 am

      this thread is still active??

      Either way, you can disassemble the component and if you can’t fix it by banging it from the bottom then you can just replace the basket.

      Reply

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