sticking painted surfaces

[Guest]

hi all,

I am relatively new to modelling and have tried full build then paint or paint and then assemble. With acrylic airbrush paint i find the glue starts to lift the paint and make a mushy mess.Is there a glue what you can use on painted surfaces which will stick firm and not damage the paint.

I have some Revell contacta paint but that never seems to stick .What am i doing wrong?

please help

Regards

Tony

[Guest]

I am by NO means an expert (one will be along shortly I'm sure) but what I've been doing is either carefully scrape the paint off the painted surfaces to be bonded OR (more often than not) I use super glue applied with a pin or cocktail stick...

Will be interested to hear if there are any other suggestions to be honest, because I was grappling with this too - as a kid I used to just slap the poly cement all over without a care of whether it's painted or not - I have a *bit* more patience now ;-)

[Guest]

If you are using polystyrene cement the glue is designed to disolve the surface of the plastic, which will then bond together. If you seal the plastic from the glue with paint it simply wont work and the bits won't stick together. Yoy will have to scrape the paint away from the surfaces to be glued. If you want to glue painted surfaces you could use cyano or superglue but this can cause a 'bloom' on the surface and spoil it. Another possibility is watered down PVA, useful for sticking clear parts to painted surfaces which will then dry clear.

If you are glueing to a painted surface though acrylic paint does not adhere as well as enamel so it could well lift off. Acrylic paint is only basically a thin plastic covering. If you are glueing to a painted surface you are best using enamel paint.

The best joint is always glueing plastic to plastic with polystyrene cement wherever possible but if not you will have to evaluate the alternatives depending on the situation.

[stona]

You need to glue plastic to plastic not paint to paint. I try to plan a build so that I can build sub-assemblies unpainted. The trick is knowing how much to build such that you can still paint it and the detail in it without undue contortions.I can then sort out any problems with the sub assemblies,maybe a bit of filling, before painting. When it comes to joining the sub assemblies together I remove the paint from mating surfaces. The back of a blade or a good Mk1 fingernail will usually do the job. As an aircraft modeller this would typically involve something like fitting a cockpit into a fuselage,removing paint from bulkhead edges and locating tabs. After assembly some degree of tidying up may be required. The modellers favourite resource,patience is required. If you attempt to overpaint a join before the glue has completely cured a mess is virtually guaranteed!

Cheers

Steve