I am building the Atlas Passenger Station kit. They say to use a “thinner cement, such as lacquer thinner” for one particular step of cementing the acetate windows to the phone booth. Can you really glue with lacquer thinner? Or am I not reading that right?
I haven’t heard of that one, but lacquer thinner does melt plastic if you use enough of it. Liquid styrene cement is usually applied to the window sash will make it sticky and then the glazing is carefully mounted. If they recommend lacquer thinner then it should work too.
Won’t the lacquer thinner and/or liquid styrene cement haze the glazing? I’ve always used white glue when adhereing clear glazing because that is what I read somewhere.
I guess if the directions say that then they should know what they are talking about.
As gsetter said, the lacquer thinner will work just like liquid styrene cement. It melts the plastic and then when dried, it will fuse the two plastic pieces together.
Bryan
How do you keep the lacquer thinner from running all over every thing? The liquid cement is bad enough. The tube cement is too thick, but the liquid stuff with the thin applicater nozzels do everything I have asked them to do. If you try it, post the results, good or bad. Maybe something new is here.
Both are ketones and that’s what dissolves the plastic, the properties of the ketone. Lacquer thinner is mostly ACETONE, or DIMETHYL KETONE (fancy name). Glue is mostly MEK, or methylacetone, ethyl methyl ketone, methyl ethyl ketone, butanone, MEETCO. Fred
You brush a small amount onto the colored plastic and after most has evaporated you put the clear on without sliding or moving it. Fred
Well, as I suspected, lacquer thinner did not work. I thought the same thing…that it would melt the plastic just enough to make the acetate hold to the booth, but it did not…it’s too “wet”. So I just used modeling cement very sparingly. Here is the funny part…after being uber-careful to put just the right amount of cement on, I had a brain cramp and accidentally stuck the acetate window (three-sided for a phone booth) on one of the wrong sides! DOH! I caught it in time, but it did make some smuges in the acetate which are obviously permanent. But then I thought about all of the phone booths I remember seeing as a kid, and many of them had cloudy and badly scratched glass anyway, so in a way it kind of makes it more realistic! See, I’m justifying my goof and calling it “realism”! Ain’t model railroading beautiful?? 
As much as I like to use Faller Expert for most modeling projects, liquid Testors is what I find works great for window glazing. Cut the clear styrene just larger than the opening, set in place(back side of course), and w/ a small paint brush just dab a the edges, the cement wicks under but stops just short of the opening. Experiment w/ the amount, too much will run out across the window glazing.
Bob K.
Well it sounds like you may have finished the glue job but I wanted to through in my 2 cents worth. I use rubber cement to glue in windows. If I don’t have that I use clear silicone. I found most other glues don’t hold or the window slides and gets nasty stuff on the window.