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Hey, recently bought a plastic Chaos lord, and I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I don't want to assemble the whole mini before painting, but I'm worried that the plastic glue won't work through painted pieces, I've done a little research, and it's about a 50/50 split of people saying aye and nay.

Could someone please clear this up for me? Thanks.

V1ND4LOO wrote:Hey, recently bought a plastic Chaos lord, and I'm in a bit of a dilemma. I don't want to assemble the whole mini before painting, but I'm worried that the plastic glue won't work through painted pieces, I've done a little research, and it's about a 50/50 split of people saying aye and nay.

Could someone please clear this up for me? Thanks.

I paint then assemble a lot of my minis. I don't know if it's necessary, but what I do before I glue is to find out where the two parts are going to touch, and then gently scrape away a small patch of paint on both surfaces with a file or a knife. I do the same thing with bits I'm going to superglue as well as plastic glue. I don't have any excessive problems with bits falling off. An arm might come off once in a while, but that's par for the course and happens at joins where I glued-then-painted just as often as painted-then-glued.

Nevelon wrote:
I paint then assemble a lot of my minis. I don't know if it's necessary, but what I do before I glue is to find out where the two parts are going to touch, and then gently scrape away a small patch of paint on both surfaces with a file or a knife. I do the same thing with bits I'm going to superglue as well as plastic glue. I don't have any excessive problems with bits falling off. An arm might come off once in a while, but that's par for the course and happens at joins where I glued-then-painted just as often as painted-then-glued.

Ah thanks, now you also mentioned metal. I have another question about your painting order with metal miniatures, do you paint, then assemble or vice versa? If the former, how do you go about it? As I've got some metal miniatures that I would like to paint up, but I don't want to assemble them before painting, their arms would prevent me from painting their chests.

I have personally found that it depends on the paint you are using as well as the glue. For example the GW spray primers and Board to Pieces primers don't seem to have any issue with being glued, but Tamiya color (which I happened to use one time as an experiment with a white primer I had laying around) led to disastrous results.

Metal Miniatures are largely the same story, it's not the metal that's going to change how you do things, only the paint...assuming you're using a proper glue for metal and not plastic glue.

This is all assuming that you're not talking about glueing onto pieces that have had details painted on them, as it wouldn't make sense to detail paint a piece that was going to be serving as a contact point for glue anyway.

Metal or plastic, I always assemble as much as possible before painting, as it's easier than handling lots of little fiddly bits when painting.

Keep in mind that if bits are blocking you off from painting behind them, in most cases you won't be able to see that bit anyway...

Yeah I'd really only paint a showcase model piece by piece, and only if I knew what my glue was going to do. You're much better off trying to assemble your model be4 you paint it if you don't know what's going to happen when you glue it together.

I do as much sub-assembly as I can and still be able to get a brush everywhere it needs to be. Then paint, and assemble.

Even if you won't be able to see everything once assembled, I generaly find it easier to paint when things are seperate. Less poking a brush in tight spaces and craning to get the proper angle. The one problem I have is holding small bits when painting them. I'm sure some blu-tack and a stick would work, but I'm lazy...

All my models are pinned, metal or not.
I test the pose using blu-tac and the pins, mark off where paint will need to go and replace the blu-tac with masking tape that's been cut to size.
Check the pose again removing any excess tape then prime and basecoat.
The tape is only removed when the model is being stuck together. No scraping needed but takes longer to prepare.

depending on their pose i will assemble and paint my miniatures.
tactical marines ill leave the bolters out when painting.
assault marines i leave their backpacks off
models with capes i leave the backpack off

i pin my metal models, and superglue does the rest of the job.
when using plastic models, i also scrape of file off a bit of the paint where it needs to be glued

Going back to the OPs question, it depends on the thickness of the paint. Polystyrene cement will tend to dissolve the paint into the plastic a bit, but this does create a weaker bond compared to a pure plastic/plastic bond. The more paint in the joint, the weaker the bond, theoretically.

I tend to undercoat with extreme prejudice and I've never really had a problem with painted joints debonding. However if they do, then its easy enough to clean up the join and re-glue.

A good way to keep from getting any paint on where youl be glueing is to super glue a peice of sprue where the joint will be that way you have something to hold when painting and when your finished painting you can just snap the sprue off and scrape off any excess glue I do this alot and works perfectly.

I consider it a non-issue. It takes very little time and effort to scrape/sand/file away paint on a joint before using plastic glue. Personally, I haven't had much need to, as I use the future contact points to attach the toothpicks I use as handles while painting separate bits. Poster tack makes a fantastic mask, as there's no need for delicate trimming - just tear off a little blob and squish it into place. After painting (only sprayed paint has any reason to hit the mask, so there shouldn't be much to contend with once you're ready to assemble), knead it a bit and the paint effectively disappears.