The best glue?

[belkin321]

What is the best glue to use on models, so a few years from now the model is not falling apart? Thanks

[dizzyfugu]

Which material? Everything is relative... and you will certainly receive a dozen of replies!

[belkin321]

Plastic models...star trek plastic models actually.

[Rogviler]

Anything that will fuse the two pieces together, making them one. I'm sure everyone has their preference, but I like Testors liquid cement.

Plain adhesive type glues definitely have their place, but I like the bulk of a model to be as strong as possible.

-Rog

[TREKKRIFFIC]

For styrene plastic kits, Testors brand plastic cement works great to fuse the plastic. Get the red tube though rather than the blue if you have a choice. You can also get it as a thinned liquid in a bottle for brushing along joints.

For clear parts not undergoing any stress I like canopy glue which is basically thinned white glue. Otherwise I use Testors cement, being careful not to use too much so as not to get glue smudges on the visible areas of the clear part.

CA (or Superglue) is great for joining dissimilar materials, like brass or metal to plastic, but it doesn't fuse the parts together so won't take a lot of flexing. It also dries fast especially if you use it in tandem with an accelerant. CA also gives off fumes which will fog clear parts so use it with caution on windows. Some modellers will paint clear parts with an acrylic clearcoat like Future acrylic floor finish (although I think it's sold now as Pledge with Future Shine or somethng like that). The acrylic coat acts as a barrier layer to protect the clear plastic from fogging.

[Kylwell]

Tenax 7R or Ambroid ProWeld. Tamiya Extra Thin is also damned nice. Testor's tube glue takes to long and the fumes give me splitting headaches.

[Saturn]

Testor's tube glue takes to long and the fumes give me splitting headaches.

Not to mention those bonds created with Toluene-based tube glue can become brittle with age. I still have the Ent-D I built in 1988, and none of those original tube-cemented joints held in the first ten years.

Using liquid cements (Testors, Tenax, Ambroid) does have a learning curve, but it's far better for build longevity. (unless you're flying your models around the room with swooshing and pew pew sounds)