Nortley Posted February 9, 2024 Report Posted February 9, 2024 Sometimes I'll pull an ancient kit from the stash and see what I can make of it. I have started a Gowland & Gowland/Revell Highway Pioneers Fiat tourer, date on the instructions is 1953. Someone had started it, but the well dried glue residue peeled off easily. I tried Testors and Tamiya liquid cements, neither would bite into the plastic to make a joint. The instructions said to use "model airplane cement" or acetone. I tried the acetone, which bit into the plastic, but I question the strength of the joint. The plastic seems slicker and different from styrene, so I'll try ABS cement next. Has anyone else ran into such a situation? Any ideas?
Ron Bell Posted February 9, 2024 Report Posted February 9, 2024 Try one of the plastic "welders". Plastruct makes two and Micromark makes a product called "same stuff". It's the same formula as Tenax 7 and works a treat on every plastic I've tried it on. 1
noelsmith Posted March 14, 2024 Report Posted March 14, 2024 Gowland had quite a range of model cars back in the day. Like Ron I use Plastruct' s Plastic Weld and find it good for many plastics.
Nortley Posted March 15, 2024 Author Report Posted March 15, 2024 (edited) I tried Styrene Tack It 2, a Tenax knock off, it smelled right but didn't even mar the surface. 5 minute epoxy seems to be working. The kit has sat somewhere since I was 5 years old, so I'm not rushing the job. The good news is that AV primer sticks, and the paint on to that. Edited March 15, 2024 by Nortley
Ron Bell Posted March 15, 2024 Report Posted March 15, 2024 Have you tried an ABS cement such as is used on Plastruct materials? The plastic has a different chemical basis so "normal" cements don't work. Plastruct makes two cements, one is specifically for ABS plastic. Rubicon models are made of a plastic that does not respond to "normal" cements either, but ABS ones work fine.
noelsmith Posted February 20, 2025 Report Posted February 20, 2025 To those not familiar with ABS plastics in model making, EMA (Engineering Model Associates) produced a large range of ABS extrusions and mouldings aimed at civil engineering and petrol chemical industry model makers. Hence the special cement used for them. EMA later started to produce extruded shapes in polystyrene plastic aimed at the model maker like you and I, and developed the EMA Plastic Weld cement that will join a number of plastics. Unlike in the ABS range they did not make things like inspection covers, pipe valves etc in polystyrene.
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