Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

As a newbie to the hobby I bought the Dark Imperium boxed set. The tiny metal rod that the glue flowed through clogged up and in that moment I didn’t think to melt it over an open flame due to the bottle being plastic. In response I used my finger to place glue on joints. On several of my primaris space marines I smeared glue on the armor. My question is, how can I clean off the citadel glue?

If it's plastic glue, then there's not much you can do. Plastic glue melts the plastic and then evaporates, rather than forming a layer over the surface like superglue does. You might be able to smooth the melted area with a needle file or fine abrasive paper once it has completely re-hardened.

EDIT: Also, it's not a good idea to deliberately put plastic glue on your fingers, as n-butyl acetate can cause pretty serious skin irritation. I use a piece of very fine wire (from a terrain/expanded polystyrene cutter) to unblock the glue applicator needle.

Yeah if it's plastic glue those pieces are going to be screwed. Depending on how much and where it could be slight irritation(my reaver titan where due to sleepyness I handled it badly and basically melted bunch of details of head but the face plate basically covers that damage so you need to really peek up close to realize something's off) to ruined model that might be just as well be thrown to garbage bin. Though you could at first use it as a painting practice piece at least!

If it's only slight effect Duskweaver's comment about smoothing and then use paint to cover it. If it's only slight damage it might not going to be jumping out among full squad.

Be careful with plastic glue in future. If the thing is clogged don't push hard(least you experience fountain of glue...) and avoid getting it on fingers as that will result in melt effect on wrong parts...The glue is nice in that result is very solid and hard to break. Bad thing is because of WHY that good result comes it's possible to also ruin your model.

Sounds like a knife and greenstuff job.

Depending on the surface/level of detail you could scrape away with you're hobby knife now that it's dry. Alternatively, if the location makes sense, cover up the mess with purity seals.

A few thoughts:

1) A pair of nose pliers or clippers (carefully you're only holding it not squeezing it) can be used to hold the metal rod on a plastic glue pot. Just hold that over a match or lighter flame for a few moments to burn out any plastic glue that has dried in the nozzle.
It doesn't take long, one match's life is about all you need if that

2) Let the plastic glue dry fully, trying to remove plastic glue only leads to messy stringy sticky messes that are even worse to clean up if you make a mistake.

3) Once its dry assess the damage, careful use of a metal blade to scrape away excess can work; you might have to scrape away a bit more and then rebuild with greenstuff if the detail damage isn't too bad. A file can also be used, but keep in mind plastic is soft and areas of thick glue even softer so it will clog up very fast (brass bristle brush can be used to clean out regular files or if you are using a diamond file use a regular rubber to rub over the file to clear the gunk).

4) Take it slow and focus on scraping/cleaning away as little as possible each time. It's easier to take more time cleaning away less than it is to take the short cut and slice off large chunks that then prove to be too much.




I've still got a khinerai wing to fix where I got a blob of glue on the table and didn't notice and the wing landed on it. Scraping away the excess did restore some of the quality, though rather like your situation its caseof careful cleaning and then assessing how bad the damage is.
Sometimes you can get away with it being battle damage or even a mutation et c....

You do know all armour should show some battle damage?