Today I bought my first ever bottle of Ambroid ProWeld and I have some questions about it. It comes with a big brush in it, being as its a welder type solvent is there any precautions I need to take to keep it from melting the plastic? Can I use it through a syringe? I have a steady supply of insulin syringes. Will it adversely affect the plastic and rubber in the syringe?
Brass tubing. What size do I need to replace .50 cal MG barrels and 20 mm cannon barrels in 1/48?
Here’s the best I can offer you: I have had no luck using plastic syringes with liquid cement, or any other cement, for that matter. The plunger melts before you get it halfway down, or the thin CAA hardens too soon. Some supply house used to sell glass syringes and friends swore by them. Try medical supply houses and Micromark. As for the tubing, I know of no brass tubing that is not oversized for the guns in question. Again, you need to go to the medical world for stainless steel tubing with a diameter of 1/32 to 1/64. For cannon and machine gun respectively. The tips of insulin syringes with a tiny length of wire pushed in it makes a perfect, sturdy pitot tube in 1/48. For the guns, remember in many cases to bevel the edges around the muzzle. This is not as hard as it sounds. Check your references. Also, check you local laws about acquiring syringes. New York has a new law where you can walk into a pharmacy and buy small syringes over the counter – it’s designed to keep junkies from spreading disease, but it’s a boon to modelers, if you don’t mind having you neighborhood pharmacist think you are a heroin addict. If you are on good terms with him, and he knows and trusts you, your pharmacist will supply you with just about any syringe or needle you might need.
Tom
You also can keep the original gun by drilling out the tip with an appopriate size micro drill bit. First, mark the center with a scriber to guide your drill and then go for it.
This has been addressed in another post. That is why I can put it here and try and help you out.
Go to www.smallparts.com
They have hypodermic stainless steel tubing in a lot of different sizes.
As for diameters in scale? Take the caliber and divide by the scale. Example: .308/48 = approx. .00642. So you would look for the inside diameter closest to that. For metrics, you will have to convert to inches to figure it out. 20mm/25.4 = .787 then do as you would for for the .308.
Now to keep you from having to do the figuring, as I have already done it for myself.
For 1/48: .308 = .00642
.50 = .0104
20mm = .0164
30mm = .0246
On your question about the brush in your liquid glue, I would recommend that you pull the brush out of the cap and through it away. Then get your self a couple of good paint brushes and use them to apply your glue. And use those particular brushes for gluing only. I have used #1 and #2 pointed brush made by Grumbacher for years and really like them. (Although no matter how you apply the glue, sooner or later it’s going to seep out of some place you weren’t expecting it to and will attempt to glue your fingers to the plastic - they won’t stick but will give you a fine set of finger prints on the model which now have to be filled and sanded - happens to me about once ever six to eight months, usually near the end of a long/late modeling session)
Qmiester is definitely right about pulling the brush out of the cap and tossing it. AS an alternative to buying the pointed brushes, there is atool out there called “Touch-N-Flow” that works on capillary action.
Another alternative for using a brush applicator is those microbrushes. They come in 4 different sizes, are bendable and can one can be used for a long time.
They can be found in any LHS and are pretty affordable.
here’s the link if you can’t find them at your LHS.
forget the brushes for glueing adn throw out that bottel of glue, just get a couple tubes of Testors model glue at a hobby shop and a couple of plastic tubes. The glue won’t melt the plastic in the tube and comes out in a nice thin clean line. The only problem is sokmetimes if the tips arn’t on the glue tube hard enough then they might pop off, but not to worry it has never ruined any of my models, yet. just give it a try.
Testors makes a liquid cement under the MODELMASTER line that has a 1.5 inch
hypodermic sized blunt tipped needle as an applicator. It also comes with 2 fine
wire probes for clearing the needle of dried cement. I bought a bottle of it this past
August and am still using it. It is also fairly quick drying and very strong.
As for gun barrels, there are some amazingly realistic aftermarket sets with perforated
cooling jackets in 48th scale. I’ve seen them mentioned on this forum in the not too distant past. Anybody remember the URL?
Ray
Thanks all for the hints and suggestions. I experimented last night on a snap kit that I’d picked up somewhere real cheap with the glue, and I’m happy to say that I had no problems with it (the ProWeld that is) melting plastic and it made for a really tight and neat deam. I’m impressed with and give it a hearty thumbs up. Now the brass tubing, I was looking at replacing the gun barrels on the Monogram P-47D that I’m working on but I’ve decided that I can live with the barrels in the kit. Even though they look wrong and they’re in the wrong location. They’re horizontal with the wing, not the ground like they should be.
