Paleo-Bond

Diana Komejan <dandi [at] tallships__ca> writes

>Does anyone have any information of an adhesive called Paleo-Bond?
>Specific it has been recommended as a filler and adhesive for
>Mammoth Ivory. Is this an appropriate adhesive?

    **** Moderator's comments: Paleo-Bond is a
    a product of:

        Uncommon Conglomerates, Inc.
        400 Western Ave. N.
        St. Paul, MN 55103-2257
        651-227-7000
        Fax: 651-227-6526
        800-323-4545
        <URL:http://www.uncommonconglomerates.com/paleobond/>

This is in  response to Diana Komejan's request for information on
Paleo-Bond adhesives.

CCI has been looking into cyanoacrylate (CA) adhesives over the last
few years. Ann Elder from the Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and
myself were trying to obtain a NCPTT grant to study these adhesives
for paleo collections but we were unsuccessful. These adhesives are
being used for paleo collections very frequently but the long term
aging studies have not been done.  In the process of writing the
grant application, we did a thorough literature review on the
subject. We found that the medical profession has done the most work
in this area for tissue closure and bone fractures. They discovered
that ETHYL CA adhesives degrade very quickly causing dermatitis from
the toxic byproducts. On the other hand, the BUTYL CA were found to
degrade slowly enough to allow the body to absorb the degradation
products and these are the CA adhesives that are now being used in
the medical profession. Most testing was done in saline type
solutions which, of course, are not the conditions that are found in
a museum. Most commercially available types of CA adhesives in North
America are the ethyl CA type including Paleo-Bond (some varieties
of CA contain poly(methyl methacrylate) or silica as a thickener).

I am hoping to start a small project on CA adhesives in the next
year or so comparing the ethyl and butyl types under various
relative humidities and UV light. Humidity and light seem to be the
big deteriorating factors for CA adhesives. Whether the humidity
found in a typical museum will degrade the CA to the point that it
is unsuitable as a long-term adhesive choice is not known at this
point in time. Perhaps the butyl variety will be more suitable than
the ethyl variety.

Vestergaard and Horie did a study on five adhesives, which included
an ethyl CA adhesive, for a mastodon tooth which might be of
interest to Diana (references below). They found that the CA filled
the gap, suffered internal shrinkage cracks, and had strong joins
(epoxy was the strongest). I believe they favoured the poly(vinyl
acetate) as the best overall.

If anyone would like more information on CA adhesives, please do not
hesitate to contact me via email or by telephone 613-998-3721.

References:

    Vestergaard, I.K.L.
    "Physical and Chemical Changes of Fossil Tooth Material by Use
    of Adhesives", Thesis, Goteborg University, Institute of
    Conservation, Goteborg, Sweden, (1994).

    Vestergaard, I.K.L,. and C.V. Horie.
    "A Comparison of the Interaction of Five Adhesives with Mastodon
    Tooth Adherends." In: Preprints of ICOM Committee for
    Conservation, II (1996) pp. 938-943.

Jane Down
Senior Conservation Scientist, CCI


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 14:56
                  Distributed: Monday, April 23, 2001
                       Message Id: cdl-14-56-007
                                  ***