Has anyone used Bondic UV "weld" on styrene models. Ace has it on a special and I thought I'd try it if it's any good; especially for securing PE parts.

I have some and I was wondering the same.

I use it quite often for those parts that are either really fragile and need a solid bond but need to be held in place while gluing, or those parts that need a super strong bond, such as something under a little pressure to keep it in line.... Its a decent product and its best attributes are on clean plastic. I have not tried it on resin yet.
Photo etch can be put in place in the same way

Ran my tests.

The kit looks like this and has a metal dispensing tip somewhat larger than the tip on Model Master liquid cement bottle.






I snipped off two pieces of grey spru. Did not sand or dress the ends.



Applied a bit of the glue. It is about like thick CA in consistancy. Used the UV light for a few seconds.



Added some weight for a durability test. For a butt joint, it seems pretty strong.



Next some clear spru. The glue is clear as well. The glue solidifies to a kinda tough plastic. Seems to be slightly flexible. As in a previous post, it did not craze the plastic.







Next, two pieces of strip styrene. I found I needed to sand the surface slightly on this to get it to stick. Not sure if this is because of some surface contamination or if regular moulded styrene from a kit would be the same.



Deliberatly left a gap to test filling properties.



The gap filled and sanded. Came out very smooth, although the glue sands a bit tougher than the styrene strip.



Next - wood. Basswood strips.



Glued the joint. It is a small joint and in shear. The weight bent the wood but the joint held well.



Last, some PE. My Achilles heel is PE railing. I put an elongated puddle of glue on my glass work surface. Then with tweezers, dipped the edge of the pe railing (1/700) in the glue, held it on the previously tested styrene strips and used the light. In just a few seconds it was stuck. I ticked it with my finger tip to see how well it held. The rail bent, but did not come loose from the styrene.



I can see that adding this stuff to my arsenal of adhesives might prove an advantage. I don't know how much glue is in the dispenser and it doesn't say on the package. At $9.99 it seems a bit pricy, but then, CA isn't really cheap either, especially since it seems my CA seems to go bad before it's all used anyway.

Was an interesting experiment.



EJ

Great demo, ej. It looks like it has considerable bulk and wouldn't "disappear" into a joint like solvent-based cement. The other negative I see is that it only works where exposed to the UV light.