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1/32 Trumpeter P-38L Lightning- "Kicked Up A Notch"


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Chuck, let me add to Joel's thanks. As someone with limited experience with CA glue, and a great reluctance to use it based on previous poor experiences, your tips for application, parts placement and clean up have taken the uncertainty out of the process. I really appreciate your sharing of your hard-won skills that help us lift our game.

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Fantastic write up on the CA. I really appreciate you taking the time to show this. Using CA glue to bond AND as a filler has made this one of the best 'tools' I have.

With parts that are PE onto PE, I found that using a fine set of needle-nose tweezers works wonders! Holding the parts with one set of tweezers, I apply the glue by dabbing the needle nose tweezers into thin glue, and then gently touching the parts until the thin glue is almost sucked in between them.

For parts where I may have put too much glue on, I have paper towel on stand by. By quickly just touching a corner or an edge of the paper towel to the glue (and not the part) it helps suck up excess glue while still leaving enough of it to hold the parts together.

More than anything, I NEVER apply the CA glue straight from the bottle. Did that once as a kid, and I had a Hurricane wing attached to my fingers for the better part of a day. Mind you, I may also be guilty of running around and making propeller sounds while straffing my sisters teddy-bears with my Hurricane-Hand... but I was a young kid. It is what it is.

The other benefit of super glue vice the other glues, as you hinted, was the lack of fumes. CA is FAR healthier to the model builder than any other cement or regular glue (excluding white glue of course). Something I found very comforting, and if you happen to get any on your fingers, a quick wash with dish-soap does the trick.

Just my 2 cents.

Cheers, and thank you for the link to the Model Car Garage... I'll be putting in a big order for the parts needed for the CP-140 landing gear wells.

Mark.

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Great tutorial about CA. Now, I've to find the equivalent of that debonder in France or Spain.

In any case, I have a question, I have seen that you use CA as the main glue for your kits. What's the advantage over the traditional plastic glue (I.E. Tamiya)?

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Great tutorial about CA. Now, I've to find the equivalent of that debonder in France or Spain.

In any case, I have a question, I have seen that you use CA as the main glue for your kits. What's the advantage over the traditional plastic glue (I.E. Tamiya)?

Actually, I still use traditional glue like Tamiya's plastic cement the most, especially the "Extra Thin" type. Plastic glue actually melts plastic together, so the bond is very strong once the parts are dry. When I glue wings together, I generally use a little extra plastic glue which oozes on the outside, providing a fill to the seam line. When dry after a week or so, you can sand it down and in many cases no more putty is required to fill any gaps.

Sometimes you need to glue something together and at the same time fill a gap without the glue showing, in which case CA glue takes over as my adhesive of choice, as was the case with the landing gear wells above. If I had used ordinary plastic glue instead, some of it would have oozed inside and wrinkled the paint and there would be no turning back. I used a rather thick CA mixture on the gear well joins, literally slopping it on the outside for extra strength and the higher viscosity kept the glue from leaking inside. I also like to use CA glue over plastic glue when I might need to break the join and try again. A good example of this is landing gear and wheel alignment. If you use plastic glue on a plastic wheel and landing gear join, you are pretty much done once the glue starts to dry and if you use too much, glue will ooze out harming the paint and the join will be weakened for weeks or maybe months until all the solvents have evaporated. With CA glue, extra glue that oozes out can be easily wiped up with a microbrush without harming paint or plastic and if you don't like the alignment later, the wheel can be broken off with a twisting action. After a little cleanup, the wheel can be reattached with more CA glue to get the alignment correct. I also prefer CA glue when attaching very small parts like AOA probes and antennae. CA glue gives me a second chance that is almost impossible with plastic glue.

I hope this all makes sense!

Cheers,

Chuck

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Two things have changed my opinion of using CA glue. the discovery of Accelerator, and using a small, cheap brush to apply it. The drying time of CA glue especially for PE work when I applied a little to much, usually ended in the part falling off or moving out of position. When I 1st tried the Accelerator it worked great, but created an absolute mess over everything including me!! I used either a toothpick or pin for ok results. But when I read your use of a small brush, that light bulb in my head turned on once again. Problem solved. Thanks Chuck for the heads up.

Joel

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Good points Joel. Your post reminds me that I missed an important point. If you want to use accelerator but maybe not full strength directly on the target for fear of ruining a paint job or wrinkling the glue, just soak a microbrush with the stuff and hold the brush near the glue, not on it. The fumes will do their thing, although it takes a little longer. I also sometimes place the glued parts on a paper towel and apply accelerator to the towel around the glued join, so that I don't have to hold a brush or anything else. This works great too and the glue dries clearer without much in the way of distortion.

One other important point. If I need to be using accelerator for an extended period of time, say on many parts in one session, I wear a respirator. Those accelerator fumes smell like they aren't doing your lungs and brain much good, so there's no use taking any chances.

Well, I haven't touched the P-38 for over a week since I'm not home right now, but I should be able to get back at it fairly soon. Thanks for letting this little CA glue tutorial provide a little interest in the meantime!

Edited by chuck540z3
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Chuck,

Never gave the paper towel idea any thought, but I can already see uses for it, like building boxes, or any self standing detail part.

Looking forward to your next P-38 update. I figured that you were away for the holidays.

Joel

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A nice tutorial Chuck, regarding CA glue.

One issue I encountered was fine line cracks in the plastic around the areas where CA glue & accelerator were applied.

CAGlueCracks.jpg

We concluded, at the time, that the cracks were probably caused by using too much accelerator. Using the micro brush or paper towel methods will minimize the amount of accelerator used, and should prevent cracking.

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A nice tutorial Chuck, regarding CA glue.

One issue I encountered was fine line cracks in the plastic around the areas where CA glue & accelerator were applied.

We concluded, at the time, that the cracks were probably caused by using too much accelerator. Using the micro brush or paper towel methods will minimize the amount of accelerator used, and should prevent cracking.

Another good point John. The same thing happened on my 1/32 Tamiya F-14B build years ago, likely for the reasons you mention. Having said that, the kit plastic was old and on my A-10 build I used lots of accelerator on gobs and gobs of CA glue that held lead weight in the nose and I had no issues with cracking on the outside. Luck of the draw sometimes I guess, but still a risk to be cognizant of. Generally speaking, I don't use accelerator unless I have to or it will help with the gluing process.

One other thing while I think of it. The debonder works on CA glue weeks and months (maybe years?) after application. You need to pay attention to where you place the debonder, because I've ruined panel lines and other gaps that I've filled with CA glue because some debonder got on the old glue. Repairs are fairly easy, but it's extra work that is unnecessary if you keep debonder away from glue that you want to stay.

I also use CA glue a lot to make small clear parts like navigation lights and even glass. This is one time you don't want accelerator anywhere near the glue, or it will frost up. After it dries, just buff it up with fine sandpaper and polishing compounds as you would when removing a seam line from a canopy. Here's an example on my A-10. The face of the forward anti-missile sensor and the small black and white position lights on the tip of the wing are all made or covered with CA glue.

PicFinal15.jpg

Edited by chuck540z3
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CA glue will only fog a windscreen if it is installed on the front fuselage and there is no air circulation underneath. Off the model with good air circulation, there is no fogging. Even if it does fog clear parts a bit off the model, the whitish residue is easily removed with a soft cloth. Just don't use CA glue near an enclosed area if clear parts like a windscreen are an issue. I use CA glue on clear parts all the time, but they are always off the model so that fumes can dissipate and not be trapped in an enclosed space.

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Great job as usual, Chuck!!

Just one thing about CA on clear parts...I know you wrote somewhere in one of your builds that you would not dip clear parts in Future, but that stuff actually seal the parts and allows one to use CA even in enclosed areas.

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Great job as usual, Chuck!!

Just one thing about CA on clear parts...I know you wrote somewhere in one of your builds that you would not dip clear parts in Future, but that stuff actually seal the parts and allows one to use CA even in enclosed areas.

With all due respect coneheadff, I don't think so. I think CA glue will still fog up anything clear, even with a Future coat. I might be wrong, but this is one of the reasons crime scene tech's use something similar to CA glue fumes to make fingerprints stand out. On grey plastic, you see almost nothing, but on clear parts, even real glass, there will be some fogging if the the fumes are trapped and allowed to adhere to the clear surface. Maybe somebody with this specific knowledge can chime in, but I don't think a Future coat makes any difference. It just makes the clear plastic look more shiny and therefore hides tiny flaws.

As far as using Future on clear canopies and windscreens is concerned, it works great but I find it a bit too shiny and if you have a plastic scratch or flaw later in the build, repairing it is harder with a Future coat than with nothing on it. I use Tamiya polishing compounds on my canopies and windscreens only (usually), so repairs using this stuff is easy. Having said all that, I used Future on my A-10 clear parts because they were vacu-formed and needed lots of help. In this case, it was much better than nothing.

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Hi Chuck,

I learned that here on the forum. I saw a couple of guys use it and it worked. The point is to leave the Future cure for a couple of days, until it's completely dry.

I'm at work right now, but I will dip a spare canopy in Future later on and post the result in a couple of days.

Alex

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That is an amazing and very inspairing build Chuck :)/> I'll have a good reference for my P38 Academy 1/48.

After surgery with a heat gun and liquid sprue, it’s all better now….

Dentfix6.jpg

Really well done :). What kind of a heat gun and liquide sprue dit you use ?

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