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I got this necron lord on ebay. He was holding the rez orb straight out ahead of himself, and I wanted him to hold it closer to his body in front of himself instead (bent at elbow roughly 90 degrees). I figured if I cut the arm at the elbow, re-positioned and plastic glued, this would be a simple change.

http://imgur.com/OiBKgXB.jpg

Well, as you can see, the arm keeps breaking off. I suppose the joint needs to be more stable. Can I pin the arm in place? If so, any advice on how to do that would be GREATLY appreciated. I'm not even sure if you can pin thin plastic like this, or how to pin an angled joint like this.

Are you using plastic glue or just superglue? If you are using simple superglue that might be your problem.

hypnoticeris wrote:Are you using plastic glue or just superglue?

FalconGK81 wrote:I figured if I cut the arm at the elbow, re-positioned and plastic glued,

Falcon: if you're using citadel plastic glue, switch to another, reputable brand like humbrol, tamiya, testors etc. GW's own glue is a bit notorious for being 'watered down'.

Judging by the photo, go easy on how much you squeeze onto the model. Also, scrape back the residue of old glue before you try again.

You could try pinning, but you're right: it could be a fiddly and delicate procedure. I think, instead of a long metal 'pin', it might easier to make a shorter plastic peg that polystyrene cement will act on. I've done this recently, sticking small hands onto wrists. Needs a bit of styrene rod of an appropriate diameter,

A decent plastic cement should hold that without needing a pin. Use a decent glue and make sure you hold it in place (or have some jig that can hold it in place) while it curing, if it gets wiggled around too much while curing it'll be weaker.

 Vermis wrote:

hypnoticeris wrote:Are you using plastic glue or just superglue?

FalconGK81 wrote:I figured if I cut the arm at the elbow, re-positioned and plastic glued,

Falcon: if you're using citadel plastic glue, switch to another, reputable brand like humbrol, tamiya, testors etc. GW's own glue is a bit notorious for being 'watered down'.

Judging by the photo, go easy on how much you squeeze onto the model. Also, scrape back the residue of old glue before you try again.

You could try pinning, but you're right: it could be a fiddly and delicate procedure. I think, instead of a long metal 'pin', it might easier to make a shorter plastic peg that polystyrene cement will act on. I've done this recently, sticking small hands onto wrists. Needs a bit of styrene rod of an appropriate diameter,

Yes, it is plastic glue (sorry for the super glue in the background of the image, that was used for another project). And yes, it was citadel brand plastic glue. I did not know that it was notorious for being "watered down". I'll try another brand. I did think it seemed a bit runny for the job.

I'll try it with a better glue, and if I'm still having issues I'll consider the advice for a styrene rod instead. Thanks!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
A decent plastic cement should hold that without needing a pin. Use a decent glue and make sure you hold it in place (or have some jig that can hold it in place) while it curing, if it gets wiggled around too much while curing it'll be weaker.

This might have been part of the problem. Keeping it stable while it was curing was extremely difficult. How do you recommend keeping it in place while it is curing?

To pin that arm, use a pindrill, smaller drillbit, and drill into the bottom stump of the arm. less then 1 mm should be sticking out of the stump at that point. On the orb forearm, drill into the point that you had already began, and glue in the part at that point.

That little of a difference, use your X acto to shave off the back of the elbow, very carefully. You have no wiggle room on that elbow, so be conservative on the cutting. Just use the side of the tip and shave the elbow region, to soften the joint.

Use Zap a Gap. and be careful with it. it won't need much on the pin job, and it will more then likely get all over your fingers if you try to squeeze the bottle. just a tip of it will go a long way.

FalconGK81 wrote:

Yes, it is plastic glue (sorry for the super glue in the background of the image, that was used for another project). And yes, it was citadel brand plastic glue. I did not know that it was notorious for being "watered down". I'll try another brand. I did think it seemed a bit runny for the job.

Not exactly 'watered', maybe, but there are a lot of stories about how citadel plastic glue can be particularly weak, with theories that the solvent content is reduced for GW's young market. Never used it myself, but I've had second-hand minis from ebay where the glue is obviously plastic glue, but strangely crusty and brittle. I can only assume it's citadel glue, but I might be wrong...

Runny glue isn't necessarily bad, though. These days I use liquid poly and d-limonene, which are purer solvents and very thin liquids. No filler to get stuck between components. Evaporates right off attachment surfaces, if you're not quick enough, but wicks between parts very easily. Use a dedicated paintbrush rather than the chunky pre-school brushes you normally get in the lids of the stuff.

D-limonene's a solvent extracted from citrus peel. Smells of oranges, which is more pleasant than the usual poly cement, but still pretty strong. Tamiya sells bottles of it as poly cement, but it's also sold as a floor-cleaning solvent and to dissolve polystyrene supports from 3D prints. I have a 1 litre can for melting down scrap EPS, but it could also keep me in plastic mini glue for a couple of centuries...

FalconGK81 wrote:
This might have been part of the problem. Keeping it stable while it was curing was extremely difficult. How do you recommend keeping it in place while it is curing?

Often what I'll do when I need to support a part is use a stack of pennies (or 5c pieces here in Australia) and then put a bit of blutack on the top (I think it's called removable poster putty in the US). Attach the arm to a stack of pennies in the position you want it, get the positioning right before you apply any glue so you aren't trying to mess around while the glue is drying.

Don't get the blutack too close to where you're going to apply glue as you don't want to accidentally glue the blutack to the model, it'll make a mess.

If it's a particularly delicate or highly stressed part, give it a good few hours before you try removing the support rig.

Citadel glue has a bad reputation. Some people swear by it, but they've had bad batches where models would just fall apart on the gaming table due to weak brittle joints (where as a GOOD plastic glue the joint should be as strong and stiff as the surrounding plastic).

If you're going to buy more glue, I can personally recommend Testors model master (the one with the metal applicator, they also make one with a plastic applicator which is a bit annoying), Revell Contacta or Tamiya Extra Thin. I've used them all and they're all good. Tamiya extra thin behaves slightly different, it is a glue where you kind of need to position the part before applying glue, then you apply small amounts to the outside of the joint and because it's so thin it wicks its way in to the join then dries and holds the part in place. Because of that reason it's not great for joints that have large gaps or joints where you want to be able to apply the glue to a part before positioning it. But in the case of parts where you have a joint with minimal gaps and can hold the model in position both before and after gluing it, then Tamiya is great.

With reputable plastic glue you shouldn't have an issue. Main things to check:

1) the fitment of the two pieces. You want a flat, simple join.
2) Sand the locations lightly so they're nice and dry/fittable with no gunk between them.
3) Use very little plastic glue. A little glue goes a long way. Properly applied plastic glue will melt the material and cause a chemical/physical bond which is nigh unbreakable.

Thank you everyone for the advice. I cleaned up the joints, made sure they fit well, and went and got some Testor's plastic cement from the local hobby shop. The glue was not runny, but more "gel" like, and I was able to put a small dab right where I wanted it, and held the pieces together for a couple of minutes. It held tight, and I left it to cure over night, and today it seems to be very well bonded.

So it looks like all I needed was a better quality plastic cement. Humorously, not only is the Testor's brand a better product, but it was HALF the price and more than TWICE the volume (.7 fl/oz for citadel, .88 fl/oz per tube of the Testor's, with two tubes in the package, $7 for the Citadel and $4 for the Testor's). I won't ever be purchasing the Citadel brand again.

Thank you everyone for the advice, it was super helpful. Even though I didn't need to pin the joints this time, I learned a lot from the recommendations.

Good to hear it worked out. You usually only really need to pin plastic when you have a small part supporting a lot of weight or when you're so violently reposing a model that you no longer have an attachment point so you need to pin it and fill the gap with greenstuff.