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I bought some styrene tubing (square and round) and angle-irons from ebay. I thought this was the right stuff to just use my normal plastic cement (I've got testors in the pentagon bottle, modelmaster in the pentagon bottle, and tamiya extra-thin in the brush pot) but it's really not behaving like I expected. >10m after gluing up (testors first, then hitting the joints with some tamiya extra-thin) it's not glued tight yet, kind of gooey and if i try to move it the joint gives way.

Am I using the wrong glue? Is my "styrene" really not styrene? I didn't buy name-brand stuff, but the seller I bought it from had good reviews.

Did you wash it well?
Any residue of grease/oil from the manufacturing process could be effecting your results.

I have used the Tamiya thin set before and it behaved in the manner you said, as in stayed gooey for a while, unless used very sparingly. Try to use just one or the other and use just the smallest amount. It should soften (melt) the styrene and then solidify fairly quickly.

This morning it just fell apart when i tugged gently on it. I'll do some tests tonight after washing some pieces, but I also contacted the vendor to verify the plastic flavor. I'm starting to suspect it's ABS rather than plain styrene.

I've used this stuff and it has always joined plastic sheet or plasti-card as it's called over here! Things I've glued 2 or 3 years ago are still joined together. Also I use Revell's contacta and it has always created a solid bond.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Plastic-Weld-Cement/dp/B0053WXLVU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1515520663&sr=8-2&keywords=plastic+weld

Sounds like ABS maybe.

though if its going gooy then its doing something.

If it's gooey, then the solvent is working - styrene.


ABS needs a more active solvent than the rather weak one in poly cement - usually a blend of toluene and MEK (both of which are on the EU naughty list).

Check your ingredients on the bottle. Modern polycements aren't the same as they used to be due to the ROHS issues.

My Revell Contacta used to be the 1% toluene, but is now an n-butyl-acetate compound which isn't as active or as fast.

The gooey may have come from the testors cement (which is considerably thicker than the tamiya, so presumably has some styrene dissolved in it).

Seller is doublechecking the plastic content, but confirmed it could be ABS and one of his customers uses MEK to glue it. I'll also check the glue ingredients, but they both work as expected on GW plastics. I also ordered some considerably higher $$ evergreen branded stuff to compare it to. I'm not willing to play with MEK in my living room, though.

I was bummed because I really wanted to work on some scratch-built Grot Cutters, but good things come to those who wait and all that. I should probably paint the trukk and finish building the GrotzWagen first anyways

the goop could just be the gel medium they use in the glue effectively nothing but filler.



get some of this then

it works flawlessly on styrine and im pretty sure it will be fine for ABS

you need a needle bottle applicator.

it like the testoris super thin in a bottle basicly water.

I just use superglue on styrene. I've never tried plastic glue, but I never thought it'd work.

 Kap'n Krump wrote:
I just use superglue on styrene. I've never tried plastic glue, but I never thought it'd work.

Plastic glue usually works, plastic models are made from styrene so it should also work on styrene sheets.

That said, a couple of styrene sheets I've found didn't adhere as well as normal using plastic cement. It stuck together but broke apart easier than normal as well.

If I'm using a plastic that requires a stronger solvent to stick together (like MEK or Toulene) then I just use superglue instead. I'd rather not have such solvents in my house and have to handle them in my hobby room. We use them at work, but have much better ventilation controls, storage cabinets and general safety controls than is available in my house.

It would be fairly odd for the manufacturer to call their ABS material styrene. If you find out it is actually ABS, or still styrene for that matter, then might be easiest to use superglue (gel, possibly) and avoid any further sticky situations.

Not really, ABS IS a "styrene".
It stands for Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.

It's just not the same as a POLYSTYRENE.


"Styrene" is a family of materials with related properties, not an absolute.