Tips: Yin and Yang (or glue and anti-glue)

Superglue is amazing stuff, if you use the good stuff it really will bond just about anything to just about anything else. The flip side of its astonishing property of near universal stickiness means that you too qualify as a bonding candidate. I’ve been waiting to do some little jobs around the house until I had my supply of anti-glue at hand. I try to keep the glue and the anti-glue together at all times. I’ve rarely had call to use it but it’s nice to know it’s there.

I’ve used a number of superglues over the years and l was always left somewhat underwhelmed with their performance. A couple of years ago a colleague recommended Zap-a-Gap and I’ve never looked back. If you’re only going to buy one super glue from the dazzling choice of cyanoacrylates, and you don’t have super specialist requirements, Zap-A-Gap is an excellent all round performer. It is well suited to general purpose household repairs and fixing duties. It really does do what it says on the bottle. It doesn’t need specialist surface preparation, its gap filling properties allow for slight mismatches in the surfaces to be bonded and critically it gives a short but usable ‘open’ period during which pieces can be adjusted for precise fit.

Whichever glue you choose, do yourself a solid and buy some debonder to go with it. Even if you don’t need it to avert comedy capers it’s useful for unpicking mistakes and cleaning up surplus glue.