Am I missing something?

[shinai]

So I am still pretty new to the hobby still with some of my builds still being five-footers and not nearly as nice as those on the forums, though within the last year my builds are getting to look a lot better.

I was at my LHS and one of the things I was picking up was a regular old tube of glue. Another customer asked if this was my first model to which I told him no that I had done a couple builds. He then asked my why I was using tube glue when other types work better and that tube glue is for people who do not know what they are doing. I do use things like epoxy and Jet, but I found that once I learned how to handle tube glue and be able to manipulate it correctly the tuff seems to work pretty good for me in most of my needs. So I know that each persons has their own preference, but I was wondering am I missing something?

On another note, I have notice that there is a pretty distinct difference between the Tamiya and Poly Scale IJN and IJA colors. I have use the various spread sheets to try and correlate the colors but the shades seem to be so different. These are the only two paints I can get locally so I was wondering if anyone had an idea why they look so different. In my opinion, the Tamiya seem to be to dark.

Thanks for the insights and helpful hints.

[Triarius]

Yes, you are missing something. ;)

Tube glue is indeed a cement, glue, or adhesive, although it does contain solvents that dissolve styrene. It does not form as good or as controlable a bond as solvent "cement"—which is not a cementing material at all. What a solvent does is dissolve the styrene at the surface without doing too much damage to the styrene polymer. As the parts are pressed together and the solvent evaporates, the parts are not glued, they are welded together. The styrene polymer re-links almost as if it were cast and formed. This is much stronger than the bond given by tube glue.

The down side to solvent cements is that they are very liquid and therefore require a different skill set than tube glue, or any other adhesive. They are best applied so that they can be wicked along a seam by capillary action, generally with the parts held together. The solvent is not applied along the whole seam, but at several points along it. There are also techniques, using the slower evaporating solvent blends such as Weld-On No. 3 in which the solvent is applied to the plastic on both sides of the joint and they are then pressed together.

Solvent cements are generally applied with a fine brush or a Touch-n-Flo applicator. The latter is HIGHLY recommended.

Adhesives such as cyanoacrylate (CA) and epoxy form strong bonds because their polymers are very strong—much stronger in tension than styrene, although CA is weak in shear.

Once you master solvent welding of styrene, you'll realize what you've been missing.

As for the IJN colors from Tamiya and Poly Scale: What looks right to you is right. IJN and IJA colors were notorious for their variation and rapid weathering in the severe climates to which they were exposed, even worse than good old US olive drab. I suspect the Tamiya colors represent the color as shown on the color chip, and the Poly Scale may represent a consensus of what the paint looked like in service. In any event, most of the folks I know who model IJN/IJA subjects extensively seem to prefer the Tamiya colors. The advantage being that it is always easier to make a dark, saturated color lighter and less saturated than it is to increase the saturation of a light, less saturated color.

[shinai]

Thanks for the reply. I actually use Tamiya extra thin and Jet and played around with the Testor's liquid cement. I just find that sometimes for smaller parts the Testor's red tube glue just works really well and did not really understand why it is frowned upon.

Yes, I prefer the Tamiya paints . . . however, I prefer to the Poly Scale IJN colors over the Tamiya ones.

[Triarius]

It does age, and as it ages it shrinks and becomes brittle. I've even seen it disintegrate and crumble over time.

CA will serve you much better for the little fiddly bits.

[Llarry]

Yes and no. CA has great tensile strength, but poor shear strength (at right angles to the joint) and can pop apart over time as well. Tube glue gives you a partial solvent bond, and a greater working time than CA, and is easier to cut/sand. There's definitely room for both in the tool kit.

I use liquid glue for most tight joints, and a variety of others -- tube, CA, PVA (Elmer's white glue), epoxy, etc. -- depending on the type of materials and joints I'm dealing with.

[datahiker]

What Llarry said.

I use a variety of glues for a variety of reasons. Don't let someone make you feel bad just because he thinks liquid glue works for every situation.

[shinai]

I did buy some Tenax 7R and holy cow does that stuff dry fast!!!! I just put together the fuselage of my "Peggy" and used the Tamiya extra thin.