What glue do you use for styrene?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
21

CA is not a great bonder for plastics unless you have nearly perfectly mated surfaces. It is especialy bad for edge to edge joints as CAs have poor shear strength. The accelerators make the bond even weaker. CAs become brittle with time.

CAs are excellent for bonding dissimilar materials and resins. If you have to use a CA to bond plastics, use one that is specially formulated for plastics.

Also it is never a good idea to apply CAs directly from the bottle, sooner or later it’s going to come out like Niagara Falls and ruin the model you’re working on. Squeeze out a few drops onto a container (I use McDonald’s little plastic condiment cups - I use these for mixing paints too), then use a straight pin or similar to dip and pickup a drop at a time and apply to the joint. For better control use a medium CA.

22

I’ve used all of the above, with pretty good results. The one thing I will NOT use anymore is that stuff in a tube (remember those ‘spider webs’??)

23

PSA: Safety First

For those of you considering using MEK, please google on “ MSDS MEK ”. Despite it’s common availability, this compound is not for the kids (nor am I suggesting the alternatives are 100 % safe either of course).

Dave M

24

Speaking of Plastruct Plastic Weld (which does indeed have the oddly worded warning that it contains a chemical know to the state of California to cause cancer - apparently other states disagree, but I keep the bottle closed when not needed, avoid skin contact, and try not to inhale the fumes just the same), I have used it to join styrene strip to resin (namely the resin used by Walthers in their garage detail parts) - it forms a strong bond (you need a lot of it though - use rubber gloves when apply), which I can carve and file with no problem, and apparently causes no disintegration of the resin (albiet I have only observed the parts for a couple of months). Not sure if resin-resin works yet…

25

[quote user=“jfugate”]
electro:

Interesting you should bring this up because I am in the middle of filming the bridges chapter on my upcoming scenery and bridges DVD.

The bridge I’m building on the video is a curved trestle, built completely out of stryrene. I’ve been building bridges out of stryrene for years and have developed a lot of techniques for making it fast and easy.

One of the things I recommend is you get an A-West Needle point glue applicator. Here’s a link:
http://www.ablehobby.com/awest_products.htm

I use regular MEK (Methyl Ethyl Ketone) from the hardware store. You can get a 10 year supply (1 quart) for less than $10. See: http://www.go2marine.com/product.do?no=32738F

You can also get it from Testors in the black bottle with a needle applicator, but they’ll charge you $7 for a tiny supply. It’s essentially MEK, with a few other additives that make it slower. Personally, I prefer straight MEK – it sets up faster and you can find it pretty cheap in hardware stores.

Only fill the A-West bottle about 1/4 full, since the more MEK you put in the faster it comes out. With just 1/4 of the bottle full, you can go from joint to joint precisely placing a drop of MEK just about as fast as you can move, and it sets up in about 30 seconds or so.

On my video, I build a styrene trestle. I use a jig for building the trestle bents, and I use a Northwest Shortline Chopper II to cut the styrene pieces.

Using these tools, I can scratchbuild a styrene trestle quickly, it comes out looking very nice, and it’s strong – far stronger than a basswood trestle.

I also use similar techniques to kitbash steel truss bridges. The Central Valley bridge kit and the MicroEngineering tall steel trestle kits provide great truss pieces you can kitbash into realistic looking styrene truss bridges.

Kitbashed steel truss bridges take a lot long

26

Personally I have used Ambroid Pro Weld and Tenax 7R. Both work ok, but I much prefer the working time and bond I get with Ambroid Pro Weld. CA works best for adhering unlike materials where at least one is porous. It is not the best choick for mating 2 plastic surfaces.

Ron

27

I kitbashed the bridges from MicroEngineering and Central Valley bridge kits. I used real railroad bridges as my guide. I sketched up an actual sized plan for each bridge and used the plan as a guide to cut-and-fit pieces from the above bridge kits to get the final bridge.

MicroEngineering and Central Valley bridge kits provide great “raw material” for just about any bridge you care to build. You can make all kinds of steel structural members with the parts from these bridges and you can just mix and match the pieces to get a very authentic looking bridge.

It helps to use a prototype bridge as a guide. For example, here’s the prototype bridge from the North Umpqua area on the real Siskiyou Line:


(click to enlarge)

And here’s my model of it:


(click to enlarge)

The end result is a pretty convincing model bridge, and it wasn’t that hard to do … just tediuous since there’s lots of little parts to cut and fit – especially for two bridges like there are here!

28

I use straight MEK (Methyl-Ethyl-Ketone) in a Testors Liquid bottle (the square glass one). The fumes are very minimal, unless you do it in a closet with the door shut, or unless you pour it out of the bottle… [:)] And it’s a bunch cheaper. If I’m gluing acrylic, I use Tenax 7R, and Plastruct’s Plastic Weld for their ABS. But mostly, it’s MEK.

You can use a needle, or one of the Microbrushes to apply a small amount of glue, or, if you’re using straight MEK, a very fine paintbrush. You do have to be pretty quick, though, because the glue can evaporate between the bottle and the work, which can be very annoying…

29

I’m by no means qualfied to answer this question, but what I’ve been using to get a small amount of glue where I want it is by using a syringe and needle I bought from the local drug store. I am using Tenax 7R glue. Hope this at least gives you and idea to try.