“Uncovering the Sticky Secret: The Surprising Inventor Behind Super Glue’s Revolutionary Bond!”
“He ruined the machine. Back in the ’50s, they cost like $3,000, which was huge.”
For reference here, that would be about $40,000 today.
But thankfully, Joyner was not reprimanded for this mishap. Instead, he and Coover, immediately realizing the enormous potential of cyanoacrylate adhesives, filed for and were awarded U.S. Patent #2,768,109 for Alcohol-Catalyzed Cyanoacrylate Adhesive Compositions/Superglue and began refining the product for commercialization. The product first appeared on store shelves in 1958 under the name “Eastman 910,” though the company later coined the enduring name “super glue.” The formula was also licensed to the Loctite Corporation of Rocky Hill, Connecticut, who sold it under the name “Loctite Quick Set 404” and later “Super Bonder.” On January 15, 1959, Harry Coover appeared on the popular television show I’ve Got a Secret to promote his new invention. On live television, Coover used a single drop of super glue to bond a metal bar to a cable. Then, he and host Garry Moore grabbed hold of the bar and were hoisted off the stage, supported only by a thin layer of adhesive. Coover would later appear in several television advertisements endorsing various formulations of super glue.
From these humble beginnings, superglue spread quickly around the world, reaching all 7 continents by the 1970s. In addition to assisting ordinary people make minor household repairs and modelmakers stick their projects together, superglue has also found applications in other, sometimes unexpected fields. Rock climbers and guitar players use it to toughen their fingers or fix minor cuts and scrapes, veterinarians use it to mend broken turtle shells, while in forensic science cyanoacrylate vapour is used to reveal latent fingerprints, the oils, water, and other residues in the fingerprint causing the vapour to polymerize into an easily-photographed white crust. Superglue can even be used to light a fire in a survival situation. When dripped onto a cotton ball or other kind of fine natural fibre, super glue undergoes an exothermic reaction powerful enough to ignite the cotton.
