In copper electrodeposition, bone glue is commonly used as a leveling agent to inhibit the growth of nodular copper deposits. However, glue is degraded through hydrolysis due to the high acid concentrations and temperatures of industrial electrolytes. This study uses atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scaling analysis to monitor the influence of glue degradation on the roughness of small-scale and short-term copper electrodeposits on 316L stainless steel. The electrolyte contained 3 mg/L of bone glue and was maintained at either 40 or 60 °C, while a series of 10-min copper deposits were collected with varying electrolyte age. Images of the surfaces were captured using AFM from which the root-mean-squared (rms) roughness (δ) was extracted. Results show that copper deposits were initially rough, but became smoother as glue became active in the electrolyte. This was followed by a nonlinear increase in surface roughness and attributed to the conversion of active glue into degraded glue as electrolyte age increased. The data was fit to a kinetic model to extract the rate constants for the conversion of inactive glue (I) to active glue (A) and then to degraded glue (D). Elevated temperatures not only increased the rate of active glue production but also the rate of degradation. Further experiments used 10-, 12-, 14-, and 16-min deposits to determine the influence of deposition time on roughness and to predict surface morphology using scaling analysis. The final kinetic model using a modified scaling approach accounts for the effects of both glue degradation and deposition time on copper deposit roughness.