For years I struggled with cyanoacrylate adhesives. I would try to glue a small wood splinter back down and the splinter would stubbornly adhere to my finger instead of the workpiece. And I was always trying to clean the stuff off my fingers with acetone or the matching dissolver product.

I tried to use my usual workshop nitrile gloves, and they gave a bit of protection, but the glue would glue them together or eat holes in the gloves. It didn’t really solve the problem.

I contacted the manufacturer of my glue to ask if they knew of a type of glove that would work. They said, “no.”

Then made a discovery that CA glues do not stick to polyethylene. And you can buy polyethylene gloves. This has been a game-changer for me. I’ve used CA glue a lot more often and with a lot more success than I ever did before. I managed to use up a whole bottle before it hardened on the shelf. The glue doesn’t stick to the gloves and my hands stay clean.

It appears that a lot of the polyethylene gloves are not waterproof, which presumably means they aren’t glue-proof. The gloves I’ve been using are “Cast Polyethylene Gloves” which appear to be a style of polyethylene glove that does not leak. These gloves are thin and they don’t fit particularly well due to the flat design, so they’re not going to replace my nitrile gloves for general use, but for dealing with “superglue” they are the answer.

-- Adrian Mariano 04/7/21