Removal of soft Araldite 2 part epoxy adhesive

I have a problem. My son broke the head off his guitar (I didn't ask!), and I made the repair with araldite 2 part epoxy adhesive. This was six months ago, and he has been using it happily since. The joint has just failed again, under the tension from the strings, and the remaining araldite in the joint is slightly soft.



To remove the residue, I have read up on two possibilities; heating it to melting point and scraping it off, or using Nitromors paint stripper or similar.

Where as I can get the head in the oven, obviously heating up the end of the broken neck, with plastic elements to the fret board, is more of a challenge.

Any thoughts on this, Nitromors or other methods for removal of the residue? (The Nitromors available in the UK no longer has methylene chloride in it.)

Having been a careful and confident user of araldite for in excess of 40 years, my confidence is dented. It was the 24 hour 'original' recipe, not the 5 minute, it was perhaps a little long in the tooth, though I've always understood it has a pretty good shelf life, and I'm pretty careful in getting the 50:50 mix.

Once I've got the wood cleaned up, thoughts on a new pack of 24 hr araldite, vs. cascamite, or other?

Many thanks

TT

 

In my experience:
Most un-cured epoxies can be removed with cheep household cooking vinegar.

Both heat and chemical strippers will destroy the guitar's finish.

Good luck

Edited to read un-cured instead of in-cured

 

Cured epoxy can be removed with vinegar ? Interesting !

 

Thanks for the rescue.
Cured epoxy is unaffected by vinegar. Un-cured can be dissolved by acids such as vinegar. The late PAR claimed he once used orange juice to clean epoxy off of arm.

 

Orange oil is a paint stripper, I think, too. Cured Polyester will be softened by some paint strippers, epoxy I doubt would be, but someone may know better.

 

The tetra-chlorides will attack cured epoxy. So will some extremely difficult to obtain solvents.

 

CCl4 was banned long ago, for public use anyway. A killer.

 

Many thanks Blueknarr- the vinegar worked a treat. the epoxy was pretty hard, too.
I'll probably go with the cascamite for redoing the repair.
Thanks for the responses Mr E. too,

 

Glad to have passed along what others taught me.