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Hello Everyone,

When I first got into the hobby back in 2nd edition, I ended up learning that I'm heavily allergic to epoxy. Any sort of air contact with my skin in its "uncured" form will result in major skin reactions. Once cured, there's usually no big deal, but I still need to be wary.

With that said, I recently became a huge fan of doing conversions and kitbashing, would you guys happen to know if an alternative exists?

At this point, I'm limited to filling cracks with modeling clay, which doesn't harden quite like epoxy resin.

Any help is appreciated!

I guess you mean all epoxies so milliput is also off the table. You said you tried modelling clay but is it the kind that actually does harden? You can buy big boxes of regular air dry clay at craft stores for cheap, but i don't know if it would work well. How about modelling past like W&N:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spHwxNvBVGA

There's Grey Stuff, I believe PP sells it?

It's what I use (primarily because I'm too lazy to get actual "green stuff", and this is just what I have on hand). It's my understanding that it's nowhere near as sticky as GS, which can be both a blessing and a curse. From personal experience I can tell you that it never really finishes curing, or perhaps I'm not rolling it correctly. Either way, several months after being applied I've found that it can still be smooshed and re-shaped with sufficient pressure applied. This can be inconvient, but we're talking about enough pressure to pretty much break the model itself anyway, so I wouldn't really say it's a weakness.

There are a number of options for different tasks, but none that fill quite as many roles as epoxy putties, unfortunately.

For filling gaps on kitbashes and smoothing joins with scratchbuilt parts, there are water-soluble acrylic pastes (GW's Liquid Greenstuff, Vallejo's plastic putty) and solvent-based alternatives (Squadron green/white putty). You can even use solvent-based plastic cements and scrap styrene (old sprues, etc.) to make spreadable "liquid plastic."

For sculpting from scratch, there's polymer clay - Sculpy, FIMO, and their ilk. Air-dry clays are another option, but they represent several issues, namely their propensity for cracking when built up thickly and tendency to shrink while drying. Polymer clays do have a downside as well, though - you need to make any parts destined for stock models separately, as they need to be baked to harden.

 morganfreeman wrote:
There's Grey Stuff, I believe PP sells it?

It's what I use (primarily because I'm too lazy to get actual "green stuff", and this is just what I have on hand). It's my understanding that it's nowhere near as sticky as GS, which can be both a blessing and a curse. From personal experience I can tell you that it never really finishes curing, or perhaps I'm not rolling it correctly. Either way, several months after being applied I've found that it can still be smooshed and re-shaped with sufficient pressure applied. This can be inconvient, but we're talking about enough pressure to pretty much break the model itself anyway, so I wouldn't really say it's a weakness.

Sounds like you're doing something wrong, or got a bad batch... ProCreate (and I believe the PP stuff and the Gale Force 9 versions are just re-packaged ProCreate) sets the same way Green Stuff does.

Still an epoxy putty though, so not a viable alternative here.



Polymer clays would be an option if you can make the parts separate from the model. The bake heat is too high to sculpt directly onto plastic models.

For small gap filling and the like, a polyester (auto-repair) putty might do the job.

Thanks for the response guys!

I'll have to try out that polymer clay. I don't know if the current clay I'm using is polymer based.

From what I've been reading online, allergies to epoxies are not uncommon, so I'd figure there has to be some epoxy putty alternative.

Have you tried simply using disposable latex gloves? They are thin enough to allow for the full use of your agility and should protect you fully from contact.

Latex gloves.

That might help a lot.

Or using air dry clay.

Gloves. Definitely. People that work with the stuff regularly all use gloves when mixing up epoxy-based materials. That really should solve your problem.

 Dullspork wrote:
Gloves. Definitely. People that work with the stuff regularly all use gloves when mixing up epoxy-based materials. That really should solve your problem.

'All' might be stretching it somewhat. I've never found a need for gloves.

If you have a sensitivity to the stuff, though, then yes, that would certainly be a sensible option.

For gap filling, you can use materials like Squadron putty (or the home mix mentioned above) on plastics and a mix of Super Glue and fillers (backing soda is popular) on metal or resin.

For sculpting from scratch, polymer clays (Sculpey, Fimo...) work well enough. Many sculpters actually work exclusively with them.

For sculpting on figures...bit more difficult. Polymer clays require heat to set. Heat will melt plastic and can deform resin. You can do a slow burn with polymers but it is right at the point where plastic will start to soften that you need to be to cook off the plasticizers. The other option is to sculpt on the figure, carefully remove the polymer clay parts, bake them and reattach with super glue. Not too difficult, but you do need to plan it a bit more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Of course there is a the old school way. Back before green stuff, sculpters used wax or solder to make their masters. Bit of a PITA, and wax would be a transitionary material...but it worked.