Identifying adhesive

Stefan Lang <stefanlang [at] utanet__at> writes

>Does anyone knew about a glue that was used 1966 in New York, which
>consisted of colophony, probably produced for woodworking? Likely it
>was produced industrially for simple use without mixing or
complicate preparing. The artist said that in 1966 it was available
everywhere.

I believe you may be referring to Lepage's Mucilage.  It was a dark
amber color and translucent.  I always thought it was really animal
glue, but I found this reference to it at

    <URL:http://www.creativepro.com/
        story/feature/21870.html?origin=story>

   "Back in my school days we didn't have any fancy glue sticks or
    double-stick tape. We had paste and something called mucilage,
    which looked exactly like it sounds. The popular brand was
    LePage's, and it came in a distinctive glass bottle with a
    strange rubber top with a slit in it. Mucilage is any gummy
    substance made from vegetable oils, though from what I can
    gather, the early stuff from LePage's was made from fish
    scales."

   -- Gene Gable, creativepro.com contributing editor
      Thursday, September 9, 2004

    **** Moderator's comments: The above URL has been wrapped for
    email. There should be no newline.

Lepage's is still around and *might* be willing to divulge the old
components (see <URL:lepages.com>).  It might have been a
combination of the two; vegetable resin and fish/animal glue, as
formulations were likely to change without notice.  Today, Elmer's
"mucilage" is PVA based.

Linda S. Roundhill
Art and Antiquities Conservation
Woodinville, WA 98072
425-481-0720


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 18:44
                 Distributed: Wednesday, March 16, 2005
                       Message Id: cdl-18-44-006
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