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Hey guys,

After many of my non-plastic cemented bonds broke on my miniatures after they returned home from an Iraq deployment in their battlefoam case, I'm ready to swear off super glue forever. It wouldn't have been such a great deal if my necron Nightbringer, my pride model, had several large chips in the pain from the freshly broken off arms hitting every other part in their battlefoam section. So I'm running into a couple of problems:

1. While JB weld does have a small amount of "tack", large pewter peices' weight will make the tackiness useless. Now I've got a permanant two-part industrial epoxy smearing and sliding all over the place on the rapidly deteriorating ruins of my once majestic pewter model.

2. I don't know what to expect from JB Weld and how strong it will be. Will I be able to shave off dried excess, apply pressure to an 8-hour old join, or any other particular property of it I should know about?

I'm quite ignorant in the entire use of two-part epoxy cold welds, so if any of you have any advice for me at all, or could link me to an article, ect., that would be spectacular. Thank you for your time.

I tried JB Weld just to see if it worked well. Well, it works great if you do not want to trim off the excess such as inside a vehicle that no one will ever see. Honestly on a figure I just found that pinning, Procreate and superglue is the best. Wonderful thing about Procreate is when superglue gets on it, it becomes rock hard in no time. As least you can trim procreate with out the need for heavy duty tools unlike JB Weld. I wouldn't waste your money on JB Weld.

Are you pinning metal models such as the Nightbringer?

That would greatly improve strength on any joins, regardless of glue.

using something like araldite on the metal mini and pinning to enhance strength. Just make sure the bond is thoroughly clean.

Like Mr Burning said, pinning and epoxy should do the trick.

I think a lot of your problems was probably due to several factors; the heat over in Iraq, which would crack some joints. Plus the movmements staff not being kind to your stuff as they loaded it probably didn't help. Don't forget then there's several hours of undamped vibration on the flight back too!

Did you fly C17 back or another bird?

My models were shipped by cargo convoy on a rough iraqi road and then by C17 to the american mail system, to my girl's place in South Carolina. So I don't doubt that the handlers were not kind. But I have always had problems with Games' Workshop brand superglue giving out with the slightest bumps and bruises. I personally took a variety of military craft through multiple "layovers" from one base to another, but my last and longest flight was a contracted civilian passenger liner.

I let the JB weld dry for about 8 hours and with about 5-8 pounds of pressure, the arm came right off again. ...is that normal, or am I the most unlucky person on earth when it comes to adhesives? I've had other modelers tell me that a JB Weld join would hold up even after every other part of the pewter itself broke. This is seriously starting to aggravate the jeebus out of me. The idea behind any of these adhesives is that they're supposed to hold up better than cellophane tape. I'm at my wits' end here. Every time I try something new I end up chipping or fouling more of the original paintjob that took me weeks to finish, not to mention burning gas and two hours to buy more parts for each attempt. People of Dakka, I implore you... the solution can not be this difficult - please tell me what I am doing wrong.

Also, I'm not familiar with pinning or with araldite.

Search the forums, there should be a couple of articles on pinning. it isn't hard and greatly increases the strength of a joint.

araldite is a two-part epoxy. depending on the kind of araldite used it takes from an hour to 24 hours for the join to cure and then it's rock hard.

I've been using this to great effect on some of my warmachine minis.

//Hoffen

I use JB quick weld, it has a five minute initial cure. You definately need to learn to pin as well.

JB Weld is very effective, but they are serious about the need to clamp the joint while it hardens. Although I've occasionally had parts break out of the weld, the epoxy has never failed me when properly mixed. At one point in time, I did try to speed up the process by mixing more of the hardener in. This led to fast drying, but brittle joints.

Check your mixture, and experiment with a model that has not been glued before. When you do go back to try and glue your original model's joint, make sure you have removed all of the previous glue. Building a bond on used up superglue is not as strong as it would be on bare metal.

Don't bother with JB Weld. JB Kwik is the stuff you want. You MUST pin heavy metal joints like that on the Nightbringer. The use of pinning and JB Kwik (sets in 5 minutes) will make a near indestructible bond. You don't really need to clamp the joins either, just hold them together. I use either my hands if necessary or a little jig made of blue tak to hold the joint while the epoxy sets.

If you have a little smear on the outside, you can wipe it off while wet, or when dry you can cut it off with an Xacto or , failing that, you can file it down, just like metal.

Hey guys, I'll give you an update on this one in case anyone e,lse reads it with the same problem.

I ran into a model-builder who's been doing models since the late 70's who managed our local HobbyTown U.S.A. shop. While they carried few of the full catalog of GW products, he hand picked all of the items I need to "pin" with: tiny-gauge brass rods, hand drill with bits in the handle, and a brand of medium-speed drying (5-15 Second)superglue with medium viscosity for filling in molding gaps. It's called Insta-Cure+ (http://www.bsi-inc.com/Pages/hobby/ca.html)... it's the purple one.

So far, everything has turned out grand. And I'm not running into the problem of GW brand CA Superglues taking forever to dry, or an instant bond I have to demolish if I touched two ends together wrong. The only disadvantage I was is itdidn't come with a finepoint applicator needle, though that store sold them for like $0.75. And a 0.75oz (20.3ml) bottle there costs me $4.50.

I also bought a stack of GW paints because I don't want to wait for The War Store to ship Vallejo paints, and pick them up from my new mailing adress which is 5 hours away from my current barracks room, untill I get out of the army. The Tamiya paints I had previously bought by the reccomendation of a guy who only knew RC cars... well, let's just say that was a mistake.

Anyway, it's all working out quite well. If you have any more questions about the products I used, post them here or PM me.

Glad to see you've found something that works for you. Personally I use Zap-a-gap, and if i need it to fill more, i drop some bicarb soda into it - that sets it instantly and is rock hard.

Glad it seems to be resolved for you. Any plans to upload pics of your Nightbringer to the Gallery?

Well, there a couple of reason I may not.

1. I painted it verbatim as box art. Nothing new to see.

2. When it shattered, it's scythe blade was missing. I had to use a Tyranid Warrior claw in it's place.

I actually have older pictures I posted on a blog topic on the dakka forums regarding it. I don't know if it would be more appropriate to submit one other the other rendition.

Glad to hear your problem is solved.
Welcome home, by the way.