Polyurethane on Pandies

[The Medway Handyman]

Anyone know how to get polyurethane glue off your hands? Comes off timber no problem, cant shift it from my hands.

[Andy Dingley]

• Don't get it on your hands.

• Wear gloves over your hands

• Don't use PU glue, it's crap

• Acetone (and moisturiser afterwards)

NB - nail polish remover won't do, as that's ethyl acetate these days, not acetone

[Lobster]

Is PU glue essentially the same base as expanding foam? Just that I recently got some of that on a carpet (ouch) and to my eternal relief it came off beautifully with nail polish remover (whatever that was made of

- but it was a new bottle).

David

[TheOldFellow]

Remove skin first. R.

[Peter Ashby]

Don't get it on them in the first place, never use it unless you are also wearing clothes you don't mind ruining. I have a t-shirt with a nice smear on the shoulder which came while I was assembling big end frames for an arbour seat...

Peter

[Andy Dingley]

To the level which I care to explain in ASCII, yes.

[The Medway Handyman]

What makes you say that? It's incredibly strong IME and completely waterproof.

[The Medway Handyman]

Thanks for that - invaded number 1 daughters room & it worked a treat!

[Andy Dingley]

Read this (last?) month's Fine Woodworking review.

PU glue has several failings:

• It's expensive

• Shelf life is poor

• Hand cleaning!

• It foams, to varying extents, making job clean-up a problem. You might get away with this outdoors, but it tends to rule it out for neat work indoors.

• It has no gap filling ability. It certainly _fills_ a gap, but the foamed glue is only of trivial strength. It's easy to make a structure that holds together fine on assembly, then collapses under load.

• It has very low yield stress, basically no "give". If there's any movement on a joint (even seasonal movement in a timber frame) then the PU bond will break and crumble, rather than just bending.

• It has minimal UV stability. You might get away with this indoors, but it tends to rule it out for work outdoors.

Overall, it's a pain to use, probably gives a bad result immediately, and will almost certainly fail long-term.

[meow2222]

it is definitely not, despite the popular claims. In wet conditions it slowly goes soft and strengthless.

NT

[meow2222]

it is definitely not, despite the popular claims. In wet conditions it very slowly goes soft and strengthless. Its fine if it can dry out at times.

NT

[Lobster]

Do you mean you used nail polish remover (as I did successfully on my carpet)?

If so does this mean nail polish remover is still acetone, OR that ethyl acetate dissolves PU?

David

[The Medway Handyman]

SWMBO had some nail poish remover pads which didn't smell like acetone. They had some effect but not brilliant. Daughters stuff smelled like acetone & worked much better.