I use photo-etched applicators. And I also bought a bunch of different ones. After use, I anneal it with a lighter. I apply a drop of glue to plastic bottle caps (if you need a little) or to medicine blisters, of which I have a lot.
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Step outside and use a lighter, works pretty good too, same thing I do w my GluLoopers. I stress step outside and stay upwind as the fumes are pretty toxi, hold well away from your face etc.
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Being a retired crime scene tech, I used super glue fumes to find latent prints on objects. Works fantastic, but the fumes can glue your contact lenses to your eyeballs. Don’t ask me how I know
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OUCH!!
I’ve heard about fingers getting glued to eyeballs (glue on finger, need to remove foreign object from eye …) but this was new.
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Honestly, I was able to get away from the fumes before it firmly set on my contacts. I could feel the super glue holding the contacts to my eyeballs and quickly backed out and tore out the contact lenses before it got fully set. Lesson learned, don’t stand with your head over the object you are fuming.
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Use a lighter. you can burn the ca glue off.
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Tamiya airbrush cleaner is the same formula as their extra thin cement. One bottle of the AB cleaner = several bottles of glue.
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I have acupuncture needles with a diameter of 0.25mm and about 5 inches long with the end away from the point twisted so it can be gripped.
It allows me to get the ca into very narrow gaps and is quite effective.
For other precision work I have glue loopers and a CA applicator set from DSPIAE.
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Tried the .25 mm acupuncture needles for CA applications and they are outstandingly good!
Thank you for the tip.
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It turns out they come in different lengths. How long are your needles and what length would you recommend based on experience?
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The ones I ordered & tried are ~50mm in length with a ~.25 mm needle tip. I’ve used one needle probably half a dozen times.
Kept the plastic tube and wedge it came with to keep store it in a work bench try. The tiny glue burr wipes off or burns off without issue.
They definitely aren’t something one wants rolling around the work bench. They need to be secured properly in my opinion.
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I bought two sizes of Glue Loopers when I re-started my modelling (after a typical lapse of decades, all because of girls, at first, then one girl, and a son, and a job, and another job, etc.). I broke one Glue Looper of each size free of its sprue, grabbed the end of it with a Mr Almighty Clip Stick,and affixed it “permanently” with masking tape. Five years later I’m still using those two Glue Loopers, and have enough others to last me for the next century. Oh. Wait. I don’t have another century!
In use, I squeeze a couple of drops of CA into a bottle cap, dip the appropriate Glue Looper into it, and apply the glue. I use a cigarette lighter to clean the Glue Looper, beneath the kitchen exhaust fan.
I’ve also become a big fan of Bob Smith Industries Instaset Accelerator. A drop of that in a CA- glued seam instantly sets the glue. (Note: the spray bottle the accelerator came in was awful. Mine got more accelerator on my hand than on the model, so I gave up and poured the remaining accelerator into a brown glass bottle with an eyedropper.
Bob
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Accelerator makes using CA so much easier. In fact, I use CA and accelerator in place of putty most of the time, It can turn an hours long ordeal into a two minute process.
I like to use this for my accelerator though, because you’re right - that spray bottle is like a fire hose.
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+1 for the Glue Loopers. Best way to apply CA.
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