Hey guys, what's the best way to apply glue for PE? Tried a few times. Want some ideas.

High & dry in Louisiana,
subhunter

Before using superglue, you might want to roughen the surfaces with 400 grit sandpaper where they are bonded. The rough surfaces will provide the bite for the superglue.

Agree about roughening the surface of the PE just before use, this also gets rid of any oxidation and other stuff that wil interfere with the bond.

I mostly use the thinner CAs, applied either with a piece of thin wire or the point/edge of an old scalpel blade. When the glue builds up on the applicator it can easily be chipped off. Normally I put a drop of glue onto a piece of clear tape or metal foil (like the wrapper from scalpel blades) and pick it up from there.

I too use the thin CAs. What I do is figure how much I may need for the current session and place that (small drop) onto wax paper. (For whatever reason the wax paper keeps the glue from drying quickly. Well over an hour and more.) With a needle or stretched sprue, I dip into glue and onto area where to be applied, or dip the PE into glue and place where needed.

I use beer caps to hold my super glue. When it gets too clogged, I drink another beer.

Maybe this explains why waste so much superglue during a building session???

Mika

I just fight with the crap straight out of the bottle. Hate the stuff, but it is a necessary evil when it comes to using PE

I remember seeing in an old Fine Scale modeler that some guy doing 1/700 PE-laden ships used superglue and the accellerator applied with streched sprue.
But instead of a straight line piece of streched sprue, he had them bent at angles between 45 and 90 degrees to reach into tight places.

Seemed to work for him...

Mike

Hi,
Whatever method you decide to use for your PE, you will eventually have some exess super glue that you wish weren't there. To take care of that, I moisten a q-tip cotton swab with debonder and rub it around the part (after the glue has cured)until the exess glue is gone. It makes for a very clean result even if it was a sloppy install. I would make sure what ever brand of debonder you use doesn't mar the plastic though. I haven't run into any that do, but I bet they are out there laying in ambush for the unsuspecting. If you work with super glues, you really ought to have some debonder around for the times when(not if) you accidentally glue yourself to your model or the part isn't aligned quite right. At least it works well on armor. I haven't tried it on a ship before. The dreadnought campaign is my first attempt at a ship model since I was a kid.

Hey Mika,
I drink just so that when those little PE parts go "ping" and fly off into the unknown I won't give a Rat's ___!
But I like your way better, I can justify why I need the caps. LOL
Grim