FAQ

Company Information

Mercury Adhesives is an American Glue Company, that is veteran owned, and located in Atlanta, Georgia.  Mercury Adhesives is absolutely committed to producing only the highest quality adhesives that are manufactured and bottled in the the United States. It was founded in 2007 by Cliff Whitney, and is now run by Eric Fether.

Mercury recognized that quality is of the utmost importance and we are proud that our adhesives and processes are all accredited by ISO9001-2000 and QS9000 standards. The medical division supporting Mercury products is USP Class VI approved, and the Mercury manufacturing facility posses numerous military and original equipment manufacturer approvals.

Mercury has put in place the technology and a global supply infrastructure to get things done. The Mercury line of high quality adhesives and sealants are simply the best, and we serve industrial and consumer clients all over the world.

The Mercury product themselves are proudly made in the USA! All of our products are 99.9% pure and are absolutely NON-TOXIC without any harmful ingredients. This cannot be said of other super glues in the world. Asian manufactured adhesives can contain:

• Chloroform: 2012 recalls on glues produced in China contained 230x the legal limits
• Formaldehyde and Praformaldehyde
• Tetra chloromethane / Carbon Tetrachloride
• Triethyl Phosphate
• Acrylonitrile
• Dichloromethane

Mercury prides ourselves in making nothing but the best adhesives on the planet.  Try them and see for yourself.  There is a difference!

The slightly different colors and hues come from the stabilizer used in the manufacturing process. This chemical has a fairly wide color window (20aspa to 150aspa). Mercury typically sees around a 30aspa to 50aspa, which for the most part would be colorless, the spec or tolerance can go as high as 150aspa, which would still be in spec and be a slight amber color. UV light can also have an effect on the stabilizer, causing an oxidation of the stabilizer, which would increase the aspa spec for that particular bottle.

Note that his color difference or oxidation of the stabilizer has no effect on the stability or the performance of the product. Mercury has performed accelerated and real time testing on all Mercury products to the point of actually exposing them to enough UV light to oxidize them to the point of turning brown with no loss in tensile strength, set times, or increase in viscosity.

Threadlocks are anaerobic adhesives, this means that they cure in the presence of metals and the absence of oxygen. To use threadlocks you simply apply them to the threads of a bolt and tighten the bolt. Once the threadlock comes into contact with the metal bolt and the oxygen is removed during the tightening process it will cure on the threads and prevent the bolt from loosening.

Mercury M68DB Debonder is a solvent, typically acetone based that dissolves dried up CA. It can also be used carefully to separate 2 parts glued together with CA.

Not all substrates are created equally, some substrates, like foam have very low moisture content. Some substrates like light-ply have high alkaline content.

Foam, with its low moisture content can be very difficult to bond, often requiring the use of accelerator.

Light-ply, with its high alkaline content, can be very difficult to bond because alkaline is a neutralizer to CA which makes it very non-reactive. In the case of light-ply the use of an accelerator or our M100XF High Performance CA can be used.

M100XF has been specifically formulated to handle the high alkaline levels in some woods giving the same speeds and strength without the use of accelerator.

Some plastics like polyolefin’s can be very difficult to bond and may require a primer be used before applying the CA.

Depending on the type of accelerator and the amount of accelerator used yes accelerator can compromise the bond. Typically accelerator shocks the CA into curing causing a more brittle joint. In some case the CA can be shocked so violently that it will actually foam up introducing air into the joint. Accelerator should never be used with thin CA and there are times, if used properly (like making fillets or filling gaps) it is perfectly acceptable to use accelerator. If accelerator is used always use it sparingly.

Mercury Adhesives accelerator has been formulated to be a bit less aggressive so as to not shock the CA but simply speed up the set time needed. The most common use for accelerators is to help with hard to bond substrates.

The Mercury MH16 Accelerator is a solvent that is used to speed up the cure of CA. It typically is one of three base ingredients, Alcohol, Heptane, or Acetone. Alcohol is the least aggressive and most substrate friendly product. Heptane is a very good all purpose accelerator as far as speed and substrate compatibility goes. Acetone is the most aggressive and least substrate compatible product. Most available accelerators are either Acetone or Heptane.

Mercury uses a Heptane base with proprietary additives to give us a nice blend between speed and aggressiveness. Our accelerators are foam compatible as well.

The phenomenon known as blooming is when the CA vapors leave a white haze behind after curing. This is typically caused by a couple of things. Too much adhesive is used, too much accelerator is used, high humidity environment, and improper ventilation around the part while the CA cures.

If an excessive amount of CA is used you will get excessive gassing during the cure process which will cause blooming. If accelerator is used in excessive amounts it speeds the curing process up so dramatically that you will get a large amount of gassing during the curing process causing blooming. The excessive moisture associated with high humidity acts just like using too much accelerator. Improper ventilation during curing will allow the vapors to build up on the surface and cause blooming.

Blooming is strictly a cosmetic issue and has nothing to do with the quality of the bond, if blooming cannot be tolerated at all than it is good to use a low odor product that will not gas or bloom.

The CA in the tip of the nozzle is reacting with moisture in the small orifice and hardening. Typically once the CA hardens the user will take a pin and stick it down into the nozzle to open it up only to find it clogs up even quicker the next time. What happens is the pin scratches the inside of the nozzle, which allows even more CA to stay in the nozzle causing it to clog up quicker. This process will be repeated several times until the nozzle is no longer able to be used and gets thrown away.

Some companies have claimed to have a clog free nozzle, which in reality is only a very long nozzle that you keep snipping the clogged end off until there is no nozzle left and still end up throwing it away. Other companies simply sell you extra caps and nozzles so you can replace them after they clog.

Mercury Adhesives has actually engineered a nozzle that not only will not clog but has 3 different points of seal to assure the product inside is kept fresh and away from moisture. This cap has a blunt nose, stainless steel pin molded into the cap, which engages into the orifice of the nozzle (not scratching the insides of the bottle) to keep the orifice clean. Inside the tip is a calculated venturie shape, which pulls the CA out of the tip and back into the bottle once the bottle is stood upright. On the very tip of the nozzle is a tapered seat which engages with a tapered boss in the cap creating compression on the tip of the nozzle keeping the nozzle clean and the product inside fresh.

If the cap is replaced each time the user is finished with the product the nozzle will never clog.