So I can continue using CA. In 30+ years my life expectancy is largely exceeded. That is a relieve (sort of).
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No problem with tires at all yet.I probably used 6-8 sets of DS when they first came out around 2010? Only 1 has gone bad on my build,a Panther,they dried and cracked,otherwise all okay after 10 years.I have some DS in their bags thdt I never used,their okay.
Tamiya one piece thst I have use have also held up.I wmt use DS anymore though to play it safe.
The durability of a CA glue bond or really most any type of glue bonds is influenced by environmental factors like heat & humidity etc. The quality of the CA glue will like be a factor as well as how the surfaces to be glued were prepared.
PVA glue that some folks rave about often holds for ~30 years or so as well. Some hide based glues have held for 300+ years!
Most typical superglue doesn’t last more than a year or so unopened in the tube or bottle. Likewise once opened most CA goes bad in ~3 to 6 months. The Bob Smith brand that a lot of mom & pop hobby shops used to sell with their own name on the lable comes to mind.
However some the premium quality CA glues like StarBond are far superior in stability and don’t polyerize as quickly unopened or opened. I’ve had opened StarBond bottles last 3+ years. Likewise, I’d expect the StarBond glued bonds to be very likely to last longer due better stability in the same environment. StarBond is expensive but easily one of the very best superglues I’ve found for hobby use.
Just my opinion but I think CA glue bonds are basically permanent if the model sits in a climate controlled environment like in a home on a enclosed display case with reasonable humidity.
FWIW - I learn something new everyday on this forum…Since Gorilla Glue is held in high regard here I’ll give GG another chance. Maybe all of the GG products I’ve purchased had expired on the shelf. I’ve never seen any Gorilla Glue brand product perform well at anything. Elmer’s white glue has out performed all three GG products I’ve tried for household or hobby. I’m genuinely surprised anyone had anything good to say about Gorilla Glue.
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+1 for Starbond CA glues. By far the best in the industry. I don’t consider them expensive at all considering their shelf life. Their Black CA changed my life when it comes to PE assembly. 15 - 30 seconds to position and no twanging off into the ether after drying. Clean up excess with debonder for an invisible bond. Medium thick for excellent control. Just an outstanding glue, but I’m so impressed with Starbond that I have all of their glues and use nothing else but Tamiya Extra Thin Quick Setting. Starbond has excellent customer service and will stand behind their product if it goes bad on you, plus they have fantastic package deals.
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Thank you Armor_Buff. Like you, I’ll give Gorilla Glue a try. Maybe the transparent product, for it doesn’t foam. Also the high quality brands of CA that are mentioned for the jobs that must be done really fast.
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am just working on the afv club dorchester command car with vinyl tires. does anyone think that painting them or coating with varnish may prevent the chalky color change?
I don’t know but if I were you I would buy resin aftermarket wheels/ tires.
Superglue, especially the gap filling ones, degrades because it expands onto crystals to fill the gap over time and that can take years for the crystals to get large enough to separate the bond. This expansion of the glue “pushes” the join to break the pieces apart cleanly, I found. After a while, the superglue got so dry that the resin part just broke off as if no glue ever held the pieces together. Armor_Buff is correct…it’s the Bob Smith CA superglue that you can find at the local hobby shop and the Zap-A-Gap superglues that deteriorate over time.
Actually, these days, with the closing of local hobby shops, I can only find Gorilla Glue superglue as it’s hard to even find Zap-A-Gap. Notice that Gorilla Glue never sold a DeBonder…I guess they never figured out how to debond Gorilla Glue. Home Depot and Target stores all sell Gorilla Glue superglue and no longer sell Zap-A-Gap superglue. Remember, we’re talking about Gorilla Glue superglue, not Gorilla Glue hardware glue.
You can kind of tell which the superglue will crystalize. If it crystalizes and clogs at the nozzle tip over time, then chances are it will break the bond after years to decades. I found that Gorilla Glue doesn’t dry and crystalize at the nozzle tip even when I wipe the tip, but slowly dries (less viscosity) hard inside the bottle and that is better for me to throw it away. I don’t like superglues that dry and crystalize at the nozzle tip.
To be fair, I’ve used Zap-a-Gap and Bob Smith superglues on figures and AFVs that never deteriorated or separated so far after decades, but for years I’ve been using exclusively Gorilla Glue with no problems. Since Gorilla Glue is ubiquitous, I don’t have to go to the local hobby shop for superglue when I can just go to the hardware store instead as there are just so few brick and mortar hobby shops around these days and many more hardware stores.
I use an index card and a toothpick to apply Gorilla Glue. I never apply it straight from the bottle unless it’s a large surface (usually not a model kit).
I just found that the clear Gorilla Glue is the best flowing and doesn’t seem to harden inside the bottle over time as fast as the other Gorilla Glue superglues. Amazon.com sells it.
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If one wants a few drops of super glue to “sit” for a while when doing PE work sort of like paint on a paint palette, placing on wax slows the set up. Can extend working over an hour or two depending on humidity in the air etc. I have a couple of those crappy little tea candles I “liberated” from my wife that got used as super glue palettes 
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I didn’t know that trick, but droplets on glass last an hour or more too 
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I’ve been quietly watching this thread while all the big guns and true craftsmen of this forum weigh in on this subject.
I’m neither of these but I’ll share my observations. I have about a half dozen kits in my wooden toy collection that I built pre 1973. How am I so sure of the date? They were left in my father’s house by me the day after I graduated high school. I never set foot in this house again.
They were saved by my youngest sister who fancies herself the family historian in the early 80s. She carefully packed several dozen and stored them and gave them to me later.
The ones I chose to keep were long out of production Renwall kits and my 1/25 Tamiya Tiger I. Does anyone remember the 1/32 Monogram Stug and PzIV with optional battle damaged side skirts? I threw these away. Forty years later now, I think I probably should have kept them.
All were assembled with tube cement. None had rubber or vinyl wheels. Several were brush painted and some painted with Testors paint and a siphon feed artists air brush (with canned air sitting in a pot of warm water 
) heady stuff for 1970. I remember buying lots of little bottles of thinner and it being a horrible mess every time I airbrushed anything. Sometimes it still is…
The only real deterioration I’ve noticed were all the solid runbber tires on my Dragon/DML kits (BTRs, etc) from the mid 90s exploded off the wheels between 2004-2008 or so. They got resin wheel/tire combos after surgery.
I dust everything once a year that isn’t in glass display cases. Stuff gets slid around on shelves but doesn’t move much. I’ve been in this house since 97 and I’ll probably be carried out of it when I finally leave.
Other that the tires I haven’t really had any real problems, but again, I’m not a craftsman like some of you dudes are.
Looks like I’ve had too much coffee again this morning.
That’s an Adams Sky Sweeper in the case.
Edited to add the Lacrosse and Honest John launchers got touched up and had new decals added in the early 90s
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The tyres on my kits were broken already when I opened the box.
I managed to get them on somehow, glued them with epoxi and painted over the mess.
If/When I get around to it they will get resin wheels …
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I have models that I built in the late '80 - early '90s that are still fine; no issues at all.
I have only had issue with one set of DS tracks that started leaching out an oily substance; they were about 6 years old at the time.
No issues with rubber tires at all. I find that if you seal the plastic wheels with a solid amount of paint, you will have no reaction between the styrene wheel and rubber tires.
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Yup - paint those rims before adding the vinyl tyres! (I’ve had old car kits where the tyres ate the chrome off the rims, so seal them with paint…)
30+ years old:
In someway I can’t scrap the thing.
Lesson learned: better to seal the decals with a clear coat.
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Deterioration in an old plastic model (excluding dust) observed when one of our club members pointed out how badly Testor’s DullCoat had yellowed his white starship models over time. Another modeler mentioned he had models 30+ years old coated with Testor’s DullCoat that had only yellowed very slightly nothing like the beige starship.
Short version of a long discussion, folks that had gas heat had noticed the yellowing of Testor’s DullCoat. The worse yellowing seemed to have happened with folks that didn’t have enthusiasm for changing their gas furnace air filters regularly 
Imagine what the insides of their lungs looks like …
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