War also, although more indirectly, gave birth to an adhesive that was easy to apply and immensely strong, a substance that offers its user a game of Russian roulette with the distinct possibility that you will get your fingers stuck together. Yes, it is what we now know of as super glue.
While working in the laboratory of the Eastman Kodak Company in 1942 trying to make clear plastic gun sights for Allied soldiers, Dr Harry Coover accidentally created a new compound. Called cyanoacrylate and very sticky, it worked well bonding things together but was of little use in creating the all-important sights. So Coover and his team put it on one side as they concentrated on their war effort.
Fast forward to 1951 and Coover was working as a supervisor on a project to create heat-resistant jet canopies. One of his assistants was Fred Joyner who stumbled across the compound that Coover had previously discovered. Spreading a layer of ethyl cyanoacrylate between two refractor prisms, which, as cyanoacrylate adhesives did not require any heat or pressure to stick items together and hold them permanently, quickly became permanently bonded.
Coover quickly recognised the practical and commercial possibilities that were opened up by this new type of adhesive. In 1954 he applied for a patent for Alcohol-catalysed Cyanoacrylate Adhesive Compositions which was granted on October 23, 1956. Coover and the Eastman team took the patent and repackaged it for commercial sale, calling it “Eastman 910” initially before coining the name “Super Glue” shortly afterwards, a name that stuck you might say.
The product was then licensed to Loctite who sold it under the name of “Loctite Quick set 404” which was then followed by a slightly altered version which they branded as “super bonder”. By the 1970s there were many manufacturers selling their own versions of super glue using Coover’s cyanoacrylic formula.
Born in a time of warfare, super glue did find a military application, used to close the wounds of soldiers on the battlefields of Vietnam. In an interview he gave to the Kingsport Times-News on July 11, 2004 Coover said “the compound demonstrated an excellent capacity to stop bleeding, and during the Vietnam War, he developed disposal cyanoacrylate sprays for use in the battle field.” It saved many lives. “That’s something I’m very proud of”, he said.
Indeed, the medical grade glue that is used in place of or in conjunction with stitches was born out of Coover’s invention.
We have much to thank Harry Coover for.
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