"what glue for plastic to MDF" Topic

I have hard plastic figures (from the plastic soldier company) and round laser cut MDF discs.

What glue should I be using (or rather not using).

I have a 'no nails' glue drying right now with a test figure. I have a hot glue gun and I have some Bostick general adhesive (where you glue both surfaces and wait 5 minutes before contact) – oh and some super-glue somewhere – though, I am like a disaster zone when I handle the stuff!

thanks in advance.

I use plain old white pva or Aleene's tacky glue for plastics and metals to mdf – I would expect no nails to be just as good.

superglue in a gel form will work.

These two sites always come in handy for questions on that:

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All my bases get the hot glue treatment for plastic, wood and metal.

No experience with Plastic Soldier Company figures or MDF bases, but for gluing hard plastic figures (and metal) to wood bases, I've used the following successfully:
- PVA glue (white, be sure to use enough.)
- PVA glue (yellow carpenter's, stronger)
- tacky craft PVA glue (e.g. Alenes).
- hot glue gun.
- epoxy.
- Liquitex sculpting paste.

I generally avoid the PVAs nowadays except the tacky craft glue. It takes a few days to set fully but I appreciate the tackyness. Hot glue sticks everything but can be a hassle and is messy and afterwards you have to cover it with your base treatment. Epoxy of course is the greatest glue ever but you have to mix it up. The sculpting paste dries rock hard and you can mix it with acrylic paint to create a filler the same color as your base color, so nowadays it's my goto glue for attaching figures.

Big blob of any PVA for plastics to wood base. All the other ones will work, but why bother with the hassle the comes with using them when the extra strength isn't needed. Heavy metal figs to wood, different story.

I have taken to using PVA (white glue) and a super glue. Works pretty well so far.

Thanks all, glad to know that I can keep clear of solvent based glue. I now have a 'no nails', a hot glue and a PVA glue test going on. It looks like all three of those will work anyway judging from the above comments.

Goo. Model railroad glue sold by Walthers directly and in model railroad shops. A tiny spot of it and it will hold your troops just fine. It is a type of rubber cement. Works fast, it's cheap, lasts forever.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek
Bunker Talk blog

Hot glue or Elmer's has always worked fine for me.

DM

I use white glue . . . BUT first I use a hobby knife to lightly score the bottom of the figure base AND score the MDF surface each with a cross-hatch pattern to give the glue more "teeth".

That is probably not necessary but I think that it holds better than smooth-to-smooth.

-- Jeff

"Liquitex sculpting paste"

Sounds interesting, I shall have to look into its possibilities.

Copydex. Undiluted it sticks the figures to the MDF base but it can be peeled off easily enough if in the future you want to rebase or whatever; dilute with water for spreading over the base and dipping in or sprinkling flock on.

Just throwing this into the mix late, but I discovered Liquid Nails Perfect Glue about a month ago. It's a thick gel so it's easy to control and is great for flat contact adhesion like figures to bases. It also takes a few minutes to set so you have some time to play with the position of your figures or whatever you're gluing. It also has a sticky quality to it as it's setting so your figures would stay in place securely. One little tube would do quite a few bases of miniatures. I did two large medieval buildings that had multiple pieces and still had about a third of the tube left.

I have used it for gluing stubborn and awkward pieces of resin building kits together and it works way better than super glue.

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