JezEger | 12 May 2014 11:54 a.m. PST |
Use model cement not superglue. Model cement fuses the pieces together. Leave hem overnight and you have a very strong bond. Any model shop carries it. If you have a small gap, you can usually fill with cement. It melts the plastic into the join. Some paint on te sprue and then assemble. I dont like this personally as you get paint in the joins, which weakens the bond. |
Garand | 12 May 2014 12:14 p.m. PST |
That is my biggest piece of advice: use liquid model cement, the stuff in a bottle, not a tube. The tube stuff is similar to the bottle stuff, but with a polymer carrier that is designed to retard evaporation and thicken the product. The bad thing is that it is easy to see the polymer as the glue rather than what it is really for, and get some poor bonds. Over time the polymer can get brittle and the model falls apart. The liquid stuff, however, does not have these drawbacks as the bond is plastic-to-plastic. Also it is thin enough that the cement gets sucked into seams via capillary action, minimizing the amount of "overflow" which might mar the surface where you do not want it. Damon. |
Pictors Studio | 12 May 2014 12:39 p.m. PST |
I use the stuff from testors in a black bottle. It works great. As has been said it bonds the pieces together. Generally I clean all of two types of things from a sprue, like body and one army. Then put a little dob of glue in place and put the arm on. Then clip and clean another piece. Then glue that on and then go til finished. For cleaning them the best thing to use is a dull hobby knife and shave the mold lines down. Make sure you have very sharp sprue cutters to take them off of the sprue in the first place. Place the flat part of the clipper against the model and the v part towards the sprue. |
Ancestral Hamster | 12 May 2014 12:58 p.m. PST |
With all plastic figures I clean them with warm soapy water to get the mold release off. The mold release can cause problems with paint adhesion. Wargames Factory doesn't seem to have much mold release on their product, but better safe than sorry. |
GoneNow | 12 May 2014 1:23 p.m. PST |
Wargames Factory doesn't use a mold release. But some people feel better washing their figures before assembly. It doesn't hurt them either way. Some of the newer kits from both Games Workshop and Wargames Factory have numbers or letters matching parts. Be sure to pay attention to this before cutting all the parts from the runners and tossing them in a pile. With some extra cutting or filling most parts can be made to fit where you want though. |
Dr Mathias | 12 May 2014 1:34 p.m. PST |
The best move I ever made regarding plastics was switching to the liquid cement from the gooey tube cement. It works fast, doesn't have strings of glue, and it can be used to smooth the scraped mold lines. |
DyeHard | 12 May 2014 2:07 p.m. PST |
For those in the USA, this is the most common form of glue for hard plastic models (and figures). link The plastic is polystyrene and these glues soften the plastic at the surface and allow the two part to flow together (i.e. welding the parts). The liquid allows for a stronger weld as the original plastic from the parts has very little in the way. The tube type was originally for wooden models (which at one time were much more common than plastic). The tube contains plastic already dissolved in solvent. The original idea was that the paste would work its way into the wood and the solvent would vapors over a few minutes leaving just the plastic to join the wooden parts together (it works quite well, by the way). But has the transition to plastic got underway, the tube glue also worked on those models as well. It works well for filling gaps, and for folks with low dexterity as it stays in place and gives time to join and adjust the positions of the parts. But the bond is much less than the liquid (pure solvent) types. |
MajorB | 12 May 2014 2:12 p.m. PST |
For those in the USA, this is the most common form of glue for hard plastic models (and figures). Which one? There are several types shown on that link. |
Bob in Edmonton | 12 May 2014 2:16 p.m. PST |
Put legs and torsos together first while thinking about the weapon arm. Then glue on the weapon arm and shield arm. Then put the weapon, shield and head on. Head goes on last as you need this guy to be looking in an intelligent direction given the rest of the figure. I work in batches of six as that seems to allow the glue to grab by the time I have come back to the first figure for the next step. |
Striker | 12 May 2014 3:24 p.m. PST |
I prefer Tenex-7R for liquid glue, not as smelly as some of the brands. Watch when you apply it, use an old brush (but with a tip still). If you happen to have some run under your finger you will leave a fingerprint on the mini when it dries. |
DyeHard | 12 May 2014 4:27 p.m. PST |
To "MajorB" I meant Testors brand. It is sold in almost every hobby shop, drug store and even grocery stores. The classic for decades was this type: link It is toxic and was used by dope-head to high, i.e. "glue sniffers" So they came out with a less high inducing version: link I do not really know what you will find on the store shelves today. But the liquid form will work better, and there are many other brands that work as well or better. The main active ingredient is Methyl Ethyl Ketone in all of them. But the other solvent do affect the speed of vaporization (i.e. setting time) for the different brands. For Testors the liquid form most common are: link and link |
DesertScrb | 12 May 2014 8:10 p.m. PST |
Any advice would be more than welcomed. Read the directions first! Here's what happened when I didn't: link |
Ancestral Hamster | 12 May 2014 8:41 p.m. PST |
One more thing
dry-fit the parts first. If necessary, get some artist's putty or similar non-permanent adhesive product to hold a limb in place so you can test poses. The first advantage of this is seeing if the sockets and plug fit as the designer intended (sometimes it won't and it will be craft knife time). Second advantage is you can see what your intended pose looks like before you make it permanent. If the pose looks goofy, or doesn't let you rank up the figures properly, you can change it. Although plastic kits can be a pain, often they are rewarding as you can customize them easily. Trim off a weapon and add a new one, add weapons, heads or other accessories from similar kits. Easier than trying to convert metal. |
Cardinal Hawkwood | 13 May 2014 6:48 a.m. PST |
yes you can do a lot with them my tip for WF is to have the head looking to the left oalong yhe shoulder line and striking to the left.They mix into a shieldwall a lot easier and dont look as dorky as the WF pictures tend to portray them as looking .I often clip off hands and reposition them slightly and I often replace th hand altogether with a GB hand hwith the weapon incast in the cast. some here
and here link
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StygianBeach | 13 May 2014 7:56 a.m. PST |
Use model cement to stick the figure together, but use superglue to stick the model to its base. You never know when you may want to re-base the model. |
bombersmoon | 13 May 2014 8:06 a.m. PST |
Ditto Bob in Edmonton. That is how I put them together. |
Dicymick | 14 May 2014 11:08 a.m. PST |
I'm wading through 1000 point British, American and German Bolt Action WWII figures about 150. The advice on this site was paint after you put them together and I found that was the best way to do it. Having put them together use a base coat before painting, I use black. As already said, use Poly Cement. I use Humbrol, only because it is easy to get hold of where I live. It comes with a metal rod which keeps the bottle opening glue free. But is also useful for running the glue onto the figure parts. I also found it helps if you glue the gun/weapon to the arm before fitting the arm to the body. Also make sure your fingers are glue free before you touch the figure. |
DHautpol | 15 May 2014 7:06 a.m. PST |
Liquid green stuff is useful for filling in any small gaps that remain. |