Gloop! vs. The Old Ways
Every adhesive on this page can stick two prints together. Exactly one of them welds them into one part.
We get it: there's a bottle of super glue in your junk drawer right now, and it was cheap. This page is the honest, science-backed comparison between the commodity adhesives you already own and the Science Sauce we synthesize in East Alton, Illinois. No marketing fog... we'll show you the chemistry, the test data, and the math on what a bond actually costs. Then you can decide like a Scientist.
The contenders
Cyanoacrylate (CA / "super glue") The sprinter. Bonds fast (with activator), available everywhere, and brittle enough that the Overlords classify it as "ceramic cosplay." It sits ON your plastic and grips mechanically. It also blooms — that white haze that fogs your beautiful prints.
Two-part epoxy The lab partner who shows up late. Genuinely stronger than CA, but you pay in time: measure, mix, apply, clamp... and wait. Even the "fast" 5-minute epoxies take far longer than that to build a bond you can actually handle.
3D Gloop! The weld. Part solvent cement, part reactive glue: it dissolves into both surfaces and crosslinks INTO the plastic. When it cures, there is no "glue layer" for a crack to follow — the joint is typically stronger than the printed plastic around it.
The science, in one minute
Commodity adhesives form mechanical bonds: they harden into a separate material that grips the surface texture of your parts. Strength depends on how well that material clings to a low-surface-energy plastic (spoiler: plastics are famously clingy-proof — that's why your CA joints pop at the worst moment).
Gloop! forms a chemical weld: carrier solvents open up the surface, the monomer complex interacts directly with the solvated polymer chains, and as the solvent evaporates everything cures and crosslinks together. One continuous part.
[ARTWORK: 3-panel weld vs. mechanical bond diagram — shared with Knowledge Base Guide 1 and the FAQ science section]
Head to head
| CA (super glue) | 2-part epoxy | 3D Gloop! | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bond type | Mechanical grip | Mechanical grip | Chemical weld |
| Joint vs. printed part | Weaker — pops under shock | Closer, still the weak link | Typically stronger than the part |
| Time to medium tack | 10s w/ activator, minutes+ without | 20–60+ min (even "5-minute" epoxy) | Under 1 minute |
| Full cure | 24 h | 24–72 h | 24 h |
| Prep | None (activator recommended) | Measure, mix, race the pot life | Shake. That's it. |
| Gap filling | Poor — wicks away | Good | Good (flavor-dependent viscosity) |
| Finish | Blooms — white haze on your print | Amber tint, drips | Cures clear, sandable |
| Flexibility | Brittle ("ceramic cosplay") | Rigid-brittle | Matches the polymer family |
| Repositioning window | Basically none | Long (annoyingly long) | 30–60 seconds, on purpose |
| Works on PLA/PETG/ABS | Surface-dependent, unreliable on PETG | Surface-dependent | Formulated per polymer |
"But Gloop! costs more."
Does it? A bottle is not a tube. Here's the math nobody puts on the label: what you actually pay per area of bonded surface, because a little Gloop! goes a ludicrously long way while a tube of CA dies of cap-crust after four uses.
| Typical price | Usable bond coverage* | Cost per 100 cm² of bond | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CA glue (20 g tube) | $8–12 | ~[XXX] cm² | ~$[X.XX] |
| 5-min epoxy (25 ml) | $9–14 | ~[XXX] cm² | ~$[X.XX] |
| 3D Gloop! (120 ml) | $29.99 | ~[X,XXX] cm² | ~$[X.XX] |
*Coverage figures are being measured empirically in our lab right now — these are placeholders until the data survives QA. We will show our work.
And the part the spreadsheet can't show: the cost of a failed bond. A print that pops at the seam after painting isn't a $0.40 adhesive failure, it's a lost weekend.
The numbers behind every bottle
The stats cards on our product pages come from the same test program. Hover the "?" on any metric to see exactly what it measures and how we rate it.
How we test
Every formula and every production batch goes through the same gauntlet in our East Alton laboratory:
- Pull tests — standardized coupons bonded, cured, and pulled until something gives. A pass means the print fails before the weld does.
- Shear and peel rigs — because real parts don't fail politely along one axis.
- Batch QA — viscosity, cure profile, and bond checks on production runs before anything ships. The Beancounters call it "expensive." The Overlords call it "non-negotiable."
[PHOTO: pull-test rig mid-test — coupon fixtured, force readout visible]
[PHOTO: QA bench — viscosity check on a production batch, lab notebook in frame]
Don't take our word for it. Fight our robot.
We built a robot tug-of-war rig: two printed halves, bonded with Gloop!, and a machine that pulls until something surrenders. It has embarrassed a lot of confident humans at trade shows. The print always fails first. Come pull the lever yourself.
[BANNER: The tug-of-war robot tours with us. Catch it at our next show and try to beat the weld. | Upcoming shows -> /events]
[IMAGE: the tug-of-war rig at a show — crowd, printed coupons, force display]
Or test it yourself, Scientist
Print our standardized test coupons, bond one pair with Gloop! and one with whatever is in your junk drawer, cure them side by side, and break them. Empiricism is free.
[BUTTON: Download the test coupons -> /test-coupons]
[BUTTON: Gloop it! -> /shop]