Yellow glue lifetime

[whit3rd]

I've just cleaned out an old squeezebottle of woodworker's glue (Elmers Professional Carpenter's Wood Glue) which bore a pricetag from a hardware store that went out of business in 1996. The glue is from earlier than that, circa 30 years old, and made a rubbery mass. Sometime between

15 and 30 years on my shelf, it died.

My question: how can I get the interior clean? Gummy bits won't improve the glue experience, should I continue my practice of refilling the small squeeze bottles from big 'uns.

That 8 oz squeeze bottle cost $2.19 new; no big change there, the convenient small bottle still doubles the price per ounce.

[Bill]

If it turns out not to be so easy, break down and buy a new "small bottle"! ; ) Or, seek out empty generic squeeze bottles.

Gummy

[Puckdropper]

whit3rd [e-mail] wrote in news:58a9d665-b837-41d9-8e9d- [e-mail]:

IIRC, liquid yellow glue is soluable in water. The bits that have dried to the insides of the bottle might not come out, though.

I would probably "fail fast" here. If things don't look promising after a few minutes of work, just toss the whole thing in the trash and spend $2.19.

If you want cheaper, look for Elmer's "school glue" at Walmart. It's $.25 to $1 (depends on the time of year you buy) and holds plenty of glue for most woodworking projects.

Puckdropper

[Sonny]

When recaning pressed in cane, cleaning the groove is done by wetting the old glue (in the groove) with warm vinegar water. Allow it to "soak" for as long as the wetness stays prevalent. Scrape the groove to remove what has loosened, then re-wetting and repeat the scraping/cleaning process. The old glue is dry, so it doesn't matter its condition. The vinegar water seems to soften the hardened, cured glue. I would think warm (or hotter) vinegar water would help clean your bottle more efficiently than just water.

Sonny

[Leon]

So, many of these type glues will change to a solid state after sitting for some time. You might try banging/jarring the bottle against a work bench a few times and see if the glue goes back to a liquid.

[whit3rd]

Most of the glue came out with water (soapy water, to keep the chunks from glomming onto the bottle sides), but that left a bit of gummy residue. This and other PVA adhesives are supposedly water-soluble, but there's other material in this one, that didn't come off. The gummy stuff resisted water, vinegar, ultrasound... and oily-solvent emulsions (water and waterless hand cleaner making a milky suspension) with paint thinner, mineral oil, citrus-glue-gone, acetone. A few tablespoons of isopropanol, though, and a few hours of soak time, and it's clean.

[g_wolf]

Sodium hydroxide (lye)

[whit3rd]

Yeah, that was next on my list; the hydroxyl of the alcohol might just have inhibited the bonding of the residues to the bottle, and lye would have been as good at that task. But, the gum's gone now.

[g_wolf]

I've found it also works well on epoxies and such