Chemical Reaction

I had the craziest thing just happen to me. There is a Plastic squirrel cage blower that is of poor design. That it literally falls apart in about a year. Most times it is the "D" shaft of the motor, keeps rotating and eventually splits the blower into two pieces

I have tried many ways of re-inforcing it, mechanically as well as with various glues even good old JB-weld. Well it totally split in half about a week ago, and my kid was here, and said lets try what they have been using where he works. They even about 5 years ago repaired the hanging mounts for the chain bucket of a multi ton chain hoist, ya know the part that catches the loose chain?

Let me try what we use all the time at work, I said sure go ahead, he said ya got any crazy or super glue? ya know

Cyanoacrylate

I said I tried that before it's too brittle and doesn;'t last long at all. he said did you use baking soda with it? WHAT?

Yeah put the pieces together run a bead of the super glue along the joint then sprinkle baking soda on it, make a nice like a metal weld looking "Bead" of the soad along the seal, and then again wet that soda with the super glue, let it sit a minute and done. a small amount of the soda will fall off as powder, but the rest is as hard as metal!

I put the bower back in and it's been a week so far.

anyone have any idea as to what is happening chemically with those two ingredients?