Old Glue Rejuvenation Question
 

Okay, this is a bit out of left field (pun intended), but I'm wondering if anyone has some insight into a semi-hypothetical situation. I'm looking to restore something on my own, and want it to be as close to its original state as possible. (I guess I should state that it's something for my PC, and not something I'm looking to sell, so it isn't an attempt to do anything shady.)

Say you have a very old scrapbook type of thing that has cards and pictures glued into it. The glue is obviously not water-soluble. It's the immovable, hard-dried stuff of yesteryear.

Here's my question: If some of the cards have become (not fully) detached from the cardboard-esque pages, is there a way to somehow rejuvenate at least a bit of the glue on back to make it liquified again, so I can re-attach everything? Sure, I could easily just put a drop of Krazy glue on the back and reattach each piece, but I really want it to be glued by the original glue itself.

I know I can try applying heat to see if it melts a bit, but that would put the pieces and the album itself in burn jeopardy, something I want to avoid. I will certainly try it to see if it'll work, but are there any other suggestions? Chemicals are fine if they rejuvenate the glue and make it sticky again. I wouldn't have a problem with that.

Bottom line, other than intense heat, is there a way to get serious old-time glue acting like it's 1930 and it's still in the paste bucket??

You may not have to use intense heat. Try an iron with a dishcloth or something similar between the iron and the paper. I used to remove mailing labels from Sports Illustrated covers using this method. The glue would soften just enough to peel the label off. It did leave marks on the paper, so there was no chance that anyone could pass one off as a newsstand copy, but I thought they looked better than with that big paper label.

These days though, they have a blank white spot on the cover where they print the address information. No getting that off.

Yeah, I should have been more specific. When I'm talking about heat, it is through ironing with a towel and wax paper to protect it. I'm hoping to find some sort of new avenue to try.

Modern glues can be reactivated. My experience is specific to certain types of rubber cement used it the manufacture of air supported buildings.

We used Toluol and MEK to reactivate the adhesives before final assembly. The adhesive would go from rock hard to a syrup consistancy within seconds if hit with a wet rag of chemical.

If I were going to try this, Toluol would be my first choice. It's been around a very long time and was likely used in the original production adhesives. Depending on your location it may be difficult to find as well as expensive.

MEK can be purchased at Lowes and is great for many things such as this. We used MEK for cleaning our high-speed recorder heads for a long time until the Air Force got all wonky on us and told we could not use it any longer.

You could try it on a small sample of dried glue first. Drop a couple of drops onto the glue spot and stir it with a toothpick. It should form a sticky small blob. That maybe all you need. However I do not know if it would stain the item you are attaching though. You’d have to sample that too on a like item first.

Cheers,

B. T.

Knowing what the original glue is would be important. Some can be reworked with various solvents, but those same solvents may affect the ink a card would be printed with, and/or the blue used to stick the layers together is they used a layered stock.

I have a few old postcards that I'm pretty sure got very wet for a long time, and are now a front and back.

Testing a small amount on a small area, or on something that's come entirely loose would be very helpful.
Water
Solvents like Those already mentioned plus mineral spirits or lighter fluid
Alcohol - some old glues may be alcohol based and similar to shellac. Those will readily soften with nice clean alcohol applied.

This is good info. Now I have to find some old albums to try these tips out on.

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It's definitely not modern glue, so that's the crux of the problem. When you mention Toluol, I recently discovered through Ace Hardware that Toluene is banned out here, so I can't quickly pick some up and give it a try. Ugh.

If Toluol is banned in your location so is MEK. Also, my use of "modern" would be the 20th century.

That made me laugh. Good stuff!!

The bottom line is I can't use most chemicals in the Soviet Republic of California, because some d-bags are in their basement listening to Zeppelin and snorting the stuff. My gawd!!

That's completely unfair and inaccurate: they are listening to Metallica.

Yeah, the Zeppelin guys were more into model glue. (which may have had the same solvents)

And that's why for about a year and half I had to use the non-sniffable lemon scented glue that didn't work on the models I built. (No, no sniffing, it smelled strongly enough it wasn't necessary)

You are correct. And we don't have basements.:D