Plastic Model Cement Question

Standard  liquid cement with a high quality pointed brush will usually work better than tube cement for plastic models for most folks. 

Tamiya would be an excellent choice.

Mr Hobby would be very good.

Testors made an excellent slow liquid cement. Not sure if it's still around. Testors had a terrible brush and a bottle practically designed to be easy to flip over and spill. It's almost like Testor's redesigned the product to fail.

Personally, I took an old empty Tamiya LC bottle relabeled with the Testors label and filled it with,Testors Liquid Cement. Great bottle, high-quality brush and nice slow liquid cement.

The thin CA I use, Insta-Cure from Sprue Brothers, comes pretty close to setting my little paper towel wicks on fire when I use them to remove excess glue from a joint.  Don't even have to mix it with anything, its just the curing process that generates a pretty extraordinary amount of heat.

I made myself sick from a homemade glue concotion one time.  Their used to be a video on you tube that showed a guy mixing two differant CA glues together he throws a paper towel down on top of it and within seconds poof he had a fireball on his desk

I use gel CA glue.  T he thin CA is only for smooth, tightly mating surfaces.  This is not true of many glueing surfaces in kits, so the gel gap filling glue fills in the tiny gaps.  I get very strong bonds.

Thanks for the warning. 

I'm in a well ventilated room with a ceiling fan above me.

Only exposed to any possible fumes for just a few seconds at a time.

Have the Tamiya orange cap glue on the way

PLEASE DO NOT MIX THOSE GLUES TOGETHER!!  Crazy fumes will result If i were you I would use the tamiya extra thin about a inch at a time. 

Thanks all for the replies.

Today I discovered that if I put a little bit of testors tube glue on a plastic sandwhich bag and then dip the wet brush from the other glue into it, I get enough time to get the parts together before the liquid dries.

 I ordered some tamiya non thin glue from Hobbylinc for my next build - which probably be a bradley

All the mentions of chemical reactions reminds me of the time when I was a kid... I discovered that swimming pool chlorine with some glow fuel poured on it will spontaneously combust...after 5 minutes which was enough time to run away from the scene  

Hi There;

     I would say NO! Don't mix unlike products.You might get a chemical reaction you don't want. You can mix Testors with Testors, But it does not seem to affect the product that much. If you want a slower glue then use Tamiya in the Orange topped bottle.

 The whole trick with Bottle glue is to touch one spot and let the glue spread in Capillary action. This is when the glue flows into the seam rather than globbing up. This means well clamped seams. Now there is this. When you are gluing small parts. Just before you are ready to place them draw the glue brush out of the bottle.

    Then lightly let the part touch the tip of the brush. It will flow only to that area of the part. Then place quickly in the hole or slot.This must be done after  checking that the part will fit alrigh, test fit, then glue. Don't ever try to force a part in it's location.

Ed Geary

Because of surgery on both thumbs, I'm not all that great at gluing parts together.

Finished my Tamiya Yukikase battle ship and it looks like hell because of my gluing techniques.

Started a Tamiya M1A2 model and decided to try out cement in a jar rather than Testors glue in a tube.

My gluing technique with the brush is much better, but I'm finding that the glue I am using dries way too quickly.

Bought a jar of  "Mr.Cement S" from Hobby Lobby. It was all they had.

Is it possible to mix the Testor's tube glue with the Mr Cement Glue to give me a slower drying mixture? 

When I first started using liquid cement for styrene, I used Plastruct's Weldene and Bondene products.  They dry quickly but not as quickly as the fast-drying formulas that are out there.  I found them good to use to get used to working with liquid cement for styrene.

As far as mixing tube glue with liquid glue goes, if I were to try mixing any products, I'd mix product from the same brand.  So, Testor's tube glue with Testor's liquid.  But as Eaglecash867 pointed out, you'd have little to no idea of the chemical reactions that could ensue, even if you mix the same brand's products.  Maybe try it, outside, and test whatever comes out on some scraps of styrene.

Consider trying CA (superglue). The bonds aren't strong, but it comes in all sorts of drying time variations, and the runny kind is pretty invisible. 

Bill

Its usually best to have the parts you want to cement already together and then just touch the brush to where they're joined.  The liquid cement is thin enough to get drawn in and along the joint by capillary action.  For gluing long sections together, what I do is hold the two parts so there's a tiny gap between them and touch the brush to the joint, wait about 20 seconds (the little gap the glue is in will keep it from evaporating too quickly) to let the glue soften the plastic, then press the parts together to get a little bead of melted plastic to ooze up from the joint.  If you do that and only work about an inch at a time, you'll be able to get even poorly fitting parts to come together with a minimum of seam filling afterward.  When the whole joint is done and you've given it at least 24 hours to harden, you can carefully scrape the bead of melted plastic off, and what was once 2 pieces of plastic is now 1 piece.  Filling seams after that usually just consists of filling a couple of tiny places that didn't quite fill all the way with melted plastic.  

As far as mixing goes, there might be some risk of an unwanted chemical reaction if you're mixing different glue brands.  Tamiya liquid cement with the orange cap has a slow drying time and is good for cementing parts that you just can't have together before applying it.  Their cement with the green cap has an extremely short working time and is the kind you would use with the method described above.