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Hey guys,

I'm just about all out of my Revel Plastic Glue, which has been fantastic but the fumes are killing me (it actually hurts my chest after a while) and stinking out my room.

I need something with less stink, but still with good bond.

I was thinking of picking up some Citadel glue at lunch to give that a whirl - I know it's more expensive, but it's easier for me to access at the moment, and has the whole brush-application thing which could be handy.

Can anyone give me some advice as to which one i should be getting? I noticed they have both thick and thin versions of their plastic and super glue.

Also, how does it go smell wise? I did have some of their thin super-glue a while ago and had no issues, other than it drying out after a little over a couple of months, despite having the lid nice and tight.

Obviously if the glue is rubbish I may have to reconsider, but that also means having to wait to put my purdy Imperial Knight together :(

The shop I'll be going to is a general hobby store - so they may have other brands if there is anything else you would recommend.

Thanks guys.

Any CNA or solvent (plastic) glue comes with fumes. Just the nature of the beast and there's no way to avoid it, short of trying to use PVA (basic white glue)... which doesn't hold all that well.

The solution to your problem is ventilation. You need to work in an area where the fumes don't collect. This is quite important, because (as you've noticed) the fumes can do harm to your lungs.

In short, open a window and run a fan blowing out.

Thanks for the advice, Vulcan.

Would you put the fan against the window so it would be "sucking" the air out, or just near the window?

Ideally it should be in a window close to the work surface so it can pull the fumes out of the room.

Yeah that'll be easy enough to do - thanks again.

Second part of the question, then - do i get the thick or thin plastic glue - is there much of a difference between the two?
Or should i really have both for various applications?

So, this stuff has fumes.
I suggest a two-fan system of across the workbench and one sucking air out the window.
This will also prevent the white frosting super glue can do if too much is used.
Look into painting / solvent / chemical masks, key here is the words "organic vapors".
It is possible to become allergic to super glue so see if it is those fumes in particular that are the problem.
The thin is ideal for "wicking" into hard to reach spots and smoothing out the thick glue.

Next, the thick is great for large surface areas or where the hold may be more critical:
Just use the "white cap" version.
"Plastruct" is ideal for ABS but this has MEK which is a really nasty solvent.
All of the above has brush applicators which work very well from my experience.

Stay away from the GW plastic glue; It is an inferior and overpriced product.

I will also +1 Tamiya Extra Thin Cement as it is one of my favorite plastic cements.

Thanks for all the help yesterday, guys.

I've found coming across Tamiya in Australia to be very difficult and is expensive as hell to ship as it's classed as a dangerous good.

Luckily, my LGS had some the the Testors Model Master Liquid Cement which the owner said is way better than the GW stuff - should do the trick nicely

http://www.bnamodelworld.com

These guys are in Vic, not horribly priced, stock a lot of Tamiya stuff.

Tamiya liquid cement is usually only found at proper model stores.
Not games stores or "hobby stores".

That said, My local (Frontline Hobbies in newcastle) tends to carry tamiya, Humbrol, Testors and Revell at various times and whatever stock is available from their supplier.

Testors also does a non-toxic plastic glue which has a pleasant citrus odor. It doesn't have a precise applicator, and it's not super thin, but if you are bothered by the fumes, this may be exactly what you want for most purposes. You will still probably want a thin plastic glue for some tiny parts, but it works very well for most purposes.

If you have a glue that works well for you already, stick with that. Just use the fan for increased ventilation to solve the fume problem.

I use both thick and thin glues - as it depends on what I am putting together.

Where I want a fast bond, but don't have to cover a large surface area - I love the thin glues (plastruct liquid cement is my fav here).

However, if I am covering a very large surface - the super thin plastruct starts to evaporate too quickly - so I use my testors liquid cement (with the precision applicator). Its fairly thin (not compared to the plastruct) but does not evaporate so fast, that I can cover larger surfaces.

Experiment, try out different types - best of luck!

The Bobsmith Gold+ is actually odorless and a super duper super-glue:

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/wppages/bsi01-01450.php

It is quite expensive, but I've switched to it completely as my superglue of choice, as it has 3 properties that I really like: odorless (ok, no big deal), vaporless -- does not frost canopies (big deal!!), and dries about 5 seconds slower than BSI InstaGap+ -- meaning that it's a little tiny bit thicker.

I put a dot on a post-it pad, apply it with a toothpick, and it gives me about 15-20 seconds to work with to get the other piece aligned and all that. Because it dries a little slower, I can watch it shrink a little (as it dries), so that there isn't excess that gets onto the finished work. Or, if it's a vehicle, the start of the plate hasn't dried by the time I get to the end.

For plastic glue, I use two: Citadel's thin glue works fine, has a nice metal tip applicator (like the Testors Master series) and I guess it might smell, but because it's not an open top, I never know. For a brush application, I like Mr. Hobby. Mr. Hobby plastic cement dries really fast -- which can be a bad thing, or it can be good, if it's a small thing, and you don't want to wait. Again, it's nice to be able to see it evaporate, and then put everything in place.

On the Mr. Hobby, I get the best results when I apply plastic cement on both surfaces, let them dry a tiny bit, and then meet the two pieces. These are actually the instructions on Testors -- Mr. Hobby is on Japanese, so I have no idea what it says hahaha.

Yeah, I see the various thicknesses of the solvent "glues" as akin to different grades of tool in the toolbox.

Each has a job it's better suited to doing.

Da Butcha wrote:
Testors also does a non-toxic plastic glue which has a pleasant citrus odor. It doesn't have a precise applicator, and it's not super thin, but if you are bothered by the fumes, this may be exactly what you want for most purposes. You will still probably want a thin plastic glue for some tiny parts, but it works very well for most purposes.

The Testor's nontoxic is where it's at. +1 to that.

chuloopa wrote:
Hey guys,

I'm just about all out of my Revel Plastic Glue, which has been fantastic but the fumes are killing me (it actually hurts my chest after a while) and stinking out my room.

I need something with less stink, but still with good bond.

I was thinking of picking up some Citadel glue at lunch to give that a whirl - I know it's more expensive, but it's easier for me to access at the moment, and has the whole brush-application thing which could be handy.

Can anyone give me some advice as to which one i should be getting? I noticed they have both thick and thin versions of their plastic and super glue.

Also, how does it go smell wise? I did have some of their thin super-glue a while ago and had no issues, other than it drying out after a little over a couple of months, despite having the lid nice and tight.

Obviously if the glue is rubbish I may have to reconsider, but that also means having to wait to put my purdy Imperial Knight together :(

The shop I'll be going to is a general hobby store - so they may have other brands if there is anything else you would recommend.

Thanks guys.

My 2 cents, I as forced to find less toxic alternatives to CA Superglue and acetone based plastic glue, read on ...


After 3 years of using an acetone based plastic glue (Tamiya Extra Thin Cement) and CA SuperGlue (Bob Smith Industires Insta Cure+), I developed an allegery to both of them roughly at the same time with couging the next day and runny nose sometimes and the occasional sneezing, flu like symptoms essentially. You can feel the irritation in the lungs. If I don't use them and days pass then the symptons go away. I tried a full face mask 3M 6800, big ventilation fans right next to me with their own floor stands and 3M 6098 filters which are meant to filter out organic acids such as acetone but still somehow the vapors affected me (less than before) if say the mask was not fitted perfectly or I walked past the hobby area without a mask after I had been gluing just before.

So I discovered "LESS" toxic alternatives ... for the plastic glue, I used less toxic "Tamiya Limonene" which is a natural citric acid (orange peel concentrate) which works really well on warhammer grey plastics, it doesn't affect me and only takes 20% longer to melt the plastic compared to acetone glues which kill me.

As a replacement for CA glue, I used Bob Smith Industries 5 min Quik Cure Epoxy, it's a two part epoxy glue, far less toxic that CA SuperGlue and the 5 min version can be used on FineCast (not the 15/30 miin versions I think). You have to mix it which is painful but it bonds stronger than superglue, and is liquid enough to say stick magnets in tiny holes on plastic Warhammer miniatures. So epoxy glue is great as a less toxic alternative to CA Superglue. Also you have to be better organized and fast with epoxy as it has a 5 minute work time and in 15 minutes it gets hard and then in one hour it is fully hardened.