Horizon Dino question - vinyl and super-glue

SGCSG1 · Post by **SGCSG1** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:01 am

I'm building my first vinyl kit, the horizon Apatosaurus. It's a big kit and the neck and tail do not fit particularly well to the body.

My plan is - heat them (tail and neck) up a little then apply super-glue to the body and try to man-handle to part so it matches up best as possible, then stick it on there and wait for the super-glue to bond.

So how does super-glue and vinyl work? Fast? Fast like seconds or minutes?

The littler parts (like feet, top of neck, etc) mate very well, but these two big parts are a problem.

Thanks for any comments / advice.

davidlgreen · Post by **davidlgreen** » Wed May 06, 2009 9:16 pm

for the couple of vinyl kits i have done, i also buy some of that foam insulation in acan and squirt it into thpieces so they'll keep their shape.
and i heated the joints with a hair dryer to pop them together.
dave

seam-filler · Post by **seam-filler** » Thu May 07, 2009 1:41 am

Super glue works fine with vinyl and, as usual it takes seconds. Bear in mind, though, that CA glue can get very brittle and, since vinyl is flexible, you will probably find that joints will pop apart some time in the future. For this reason, a gel or thicker CA is probably better than a thin one.

Having said that, I hate all CA with a passion & think that it was the seventh thing out of Pandora's Box, so I tend to use 5-minute epoxy for most joints and standard epoxy for bigger, load-bearing joints. Epoxy is more flexible than CA. But you must wash your parts in warm water with a little detergent (you should do this anyway).

Hand-hot water can also be used to heat up parts, but the hair-drier is best. Do not use a paint-stripper gun. Just never heat it up to anything hiotter than you can actually handle. You'll be surprised just how flexible vinyl gets when hot.

If you do have joints that need filling, try an acrylic filler. It's more flexible than things like AVES and Milliput. If you lose some surface detail, get some RTV rubber or liquid latex rubber and use a section of the surface of the skin, make a "rubber stamp" of the scales (or skin texture). You can use this rubber stamp in the filler to restore any lost texture.

Best of luck.