There are only a handful of actual manufacturers of Cyanoacrylate in the world. Manufacturing CA is a very involved, complicated and expensive process. While it is true that there are “re-packagers” of CA in the USA, there is only one true manufacturer. Mercury Adhesives products are specially formulated and manufactured in Georgia where over 2 tons per month are produced with in-house reactors. All the other products sold in the hobby market are made overseas and are some times industrial remnants sold to the highest bidder and then shipped into the US in bulk for re-packaging.
The problem associated with shipping CA from overseas is simply the time lines it takes to produce the products, package the products, and ship them to their final destination. Once the products are made they typically sit in totes in a warehouse waiting to be sold, this could be several months in un-controlled environments. Once product is sold it is scheduled to be filled into bottles, typically taking another 30 days, then they are shipped to the US, which takes a minimum of 8 weeks on the water (which by the way is the worst environment for CA). Once they make port they can sit anywhere from 2 to 4 more weeks clearing customs before being shipped to the customer, again all in un-controlled environments. At this point the products are put into another warehouse where they could sit for several more months waiting to be shipped to the retailer who sells to the end user. By the time the products reach the retail shelf they can be as much as 12 months old or older. The only way to assure an acceptable shelf life to the consumer, who purchases this product from the retailer is to over stabilize the product with added chemicals which greatly reduces speed, strength and consistency of the CA.
Since Mercury Adhesives are made in Georgia these time lines are reduced dramatically. Being one of the largest producers in the world fresh batches are being produced every day which means that product never sits in totes for more than a few weeks and in most cases product is made to order. By the time Mercury products reach the retailer it is never more than 60 days old, this means Mercury can make a much higher quality more aggressive product since we do not have to over stabilize our products to deal with the long time lines getting product to the retail shelf. This is also another reason why Mercury Adhesives is the only company to offer a 2-year guarantee.