Old School CA (1970s era)

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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This one is for the very long term modelers here. I happened to be watching a classic medical program (1974 original broadcast). The patient had glued his hands to the model ship he was working on. The glue in question was a CA. The doctor had mentioned that the government had recalled them at some point. Did the formulations change on them recently or did people just not know how to use them. Just curious as CAs are very common these days.

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Don’t think there has been much of a change, except different flavors..

I can still stick my fingers together or to other things if I’m not careful.

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Over the years I had heard ‘stories’ that super glue was used by field medics during the Vietnam conflict. There might be some basis of fact there:

There you go…

Ed

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i had read that medics and Drs in Vietnam used a spray version of CA to cover and stop the bleeding of the spleen which would otherwise need to be removed. The CA was biodegradable inside the body after the spleen was sufficiently healed

but the FDA didn’t approve the medical grade CA in the U.S. and those same Drs went to Canada to purchase it.

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Medical-grade cyanoacrylate adhesive is a ‘thing’ – commercial CA is more cheaply fabricated and causes skin irritation.

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@Woke_Hoagland
That’s what the so-called liquid stitches are.

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I started selling it in my hobby shop back then when it first came out. I ended up gluing a model to my hand and sent one of my employees across the street to the grocery store to get a bottle of nail polish remover.

I also had a customer that bought it and ended up at the emergency room after gluing her fingers together or something like that. She had been told that nail polish remover would loosen it up and panicked and forgot what I said.