What kind of glue are you using to hold the details you have installed on your diesels? Cab shades, plastic horns, brake lines etc.
I've usually used the thick (gel or gap filling) CA glues. Best bet for me has been to squeeze a little bit out on a surface, pick up the part with tweezers, touch it to the glue and place. Paint and clear coats help lock it in place.
I have asked around in other places, if anyone has used UV activated glue. although it looks like it could solve a lot of problems that epoxy and CA glue can cause, NOBODY told me they have tried it. I guess it is too new or too weird.
I use CA glue almost without exception. The best way to ensure the details are secure is to not handle the engine. Obvious, I know. I try to put it on the layout and leave it there. If the engine is to travel I just expect to periodically replace a few details.
Thick CA and sometimes accelerator has worked well for me. Thick so it fills tiny gaps and gets maximum grab, accelerator so I don't have to hold the part still for minutes while it cures. Also speeding up the cure with accelerator minimizes "frosting" that can occur with CAs. Seems like the biggest problem with any glue is getting the right amount to hold a part in place without being a big goober. What problems do CA and epoxies have that UV glue would solve?
As they are used commercially for optics they dont shrink and dont frost clear parts. It is not stirred so no bubbles. Once you get the thing in place, you zap it with a uv light (glue in Germany comes with small LED) and it sets in seconds. Otherwise it stays liquid. I know fly fishermen use it, and the artsy-crafty ladies. From what I see it dries clear, you can put "stuff" in it, like glitter and, I am not sure of this but I think dyes. It's super strong and you can continue adding layers. I have not used the stuff myself, I was kind of asking around if anyone else has in the hobby. I am sure it is the new thing that will be ignored, until someone will discover it in one of the modeler's magazines, then people will be wondering how they ever modeled without it. Remember you heard about it here first
I seen an advertisement for it on line, sold at a big box hardware store. Stuff was called Bondic and there are youtube videos of it being used. There were some in English so I assume it is also in US. I did some poking around online and there is several UV glues out there. Tamaya appears to have some UV activated putty that looks promising too. One drawback I see is, if you have parts that can't get any light to it, then you can't activate the glue. However, I did see a type online that has a kind of delay. You put the glue on the parts, zap it with the light to start reaction, then put the parts together and hold it. Dentists have used UV stuff for years. I guess it is kind of trickling down to us now.
Searching Amazon for UV Glue and UV adhesive returned some Loctite products that look like they were intended for industrial applications and were totally cost prohibitive. There's also something called CRL that came in several flavors but the low viscosity was ~$15 and the high visc. was ~$30 for 30g bottles. A little more affordable but still more expensive for comparable amounts of CA. I don't know. I'm sure it works good but for me a dab of CA and a shot of accelerator is working well, changing that to a dab of glue and a shot of UV light doesn't seem necessary... yet. If someone can confirm it will glue two pieces of PVC pipe together side by side I might give it a longer look!
Thanks Gang At this point its almost hands down CA thick on this thread. A few of you have mentioned Tweezers, although I have a set of tweezers I am not real happy with the ones I am using. Any additional recommendations will be appreciated.
I am also a think CA user for locomotive detail parts. As for the tweezers.....my wife works at the hospital and brings me home some of the coolest tweezers with different shaped ends and sizes. Some only get used once and then thrown away. Now they get used more then once.
I use a few different glues for my loco details, many I grab from the "dark side" of my hobby, model airplanes. I use ZAP brand CA, mainly the green label medium and yellow label thick viscosities. If the detail part is snug, I don't need accelerator. For placing windshield wipers on cabs or headlight and marker lights on hoods, I use a product called canopy glue or RC56. It is used for gluing canopies on model airplanes, is strong and dries clear.
I also use gap filling CA. For tweezers, I use a fine tip pair. WHen it comes to tweezers pay the extra money for the good ones, it's worth it.
I'll second what Karl said about getting what you pay for with tweezers. The keys I look for are good sharp corners on the ends (makes it easier when dealing with small parts), flat interiors on the "jaws" and ends that match exactly between the halves (a lot of the cheaper ones seem to be offset so that the two halves don't match properly)
You're right about the tweezers. Good ones are not that much more expensive and way out perform the cheap ones. Spend a little more on the good stuff.
