Gap filling materials

Glad I stumbled across this message thread....I see the "Zap-a-Gap" stuff everywhere, but why are there so many different "flavors", i.e. pink, green, gold labels, fast cure; slo-cure....who can take this crazy bunch of snakes and lay 'em out straight? There's enough of these to need a manual just to see what each does and doesn't do well.

I tried Tamiya with the tiny green tube for mixing with the huge tube of putty (50:1 ratio, I think) but that was a waste of money. I'm not a good mix-n-fill guy I guess.....I do use Testors and it works fairly well for most of my needs, but I also bought a tube of Green Putty, too. That seems to dry super quick giving me little time to work with it before it starts leaving "cracks" in the surface which then need RE-puttying.

TOUGH subject to master, thus far anyway........

Bob

Van Buren, AR

Personally, I use only Testor's white (Hobby Shop, thin with rubbing alcohol) or Bondo Red Glazing (Automotive parts shop, thin with Testor's Liquid Cement) for putties... Superglue, white glue, stretched spue, and styrene strip round out my other materials... There's really no "one and only" gap-filler out there, IMHO...

Some kits require the use of all of them, lol...

You can try toothpaste for small gaps if sanding can't get rid of it. Metal polisher paste works too

Tamiya filler putty drys fast and can be wiped off quickly with Acetone (nail polish remover) without effecting plastic details. Wet a Q-tip to wipe excess off from around hard to sand areas like wing roots.

It can be thinned with liquid plastic solvent cement but will take a long time to cure for sanding. Thinning it in this way allows it to 'bite' the plastic better but be cautious as the solvent cement will soften plastic and mar details.

Some use automotive scratch filler putty which has similar properties. Get the kind in a tube not can. Its usually a red-oxide color and a better value per volume. I would only go this way if a hobby shop is unavailable.