Which is better and stronger–super glue or epoxy?
Super glue (CA Glue) is good in some situations but has a couple pitfalls. It tends to cloud up plastic with a white chalky residue and is not very strong. I used to use CA Glue all the time but have found other products that I at least like better. In fact I use super glue now more for its gap filling properties than holding my airplanes together.
I personally don’t have much experience using any of the epoxies out there, so someone else will have to leave their opinion on them. Personally for most areas I like to use plastic cements that melt and “weld” the plastic together. There are several on the market but my personal favorite is Tenax7R. It works very quickly so when you use it you’d better make sure you got things exactly where you want them. Oh and like most cements it will ruin you paint job if you use it on painted surfaces.
epoxy is a more durable long-term solution. ca bonds are more easily broken. i only use ca for anything that isnt plastic (pe, resin, fingers etc) if its weight bearing like resin wheelwells, or needs any real strength i use devcon five minute two part epoxy and i love it (after usually tacking it in place with ca first.) It is a more messy and less precice stuff to use though so i only use epoxy where it will not be seen .sometimes i may add a bit of scrap plastic to an already glued seam/join with ca for extra strength but plastic welders are best for plastic.
+1 on gap filling ca too!!!
I use both. My normal glue is the gel CA. However, it fogs transparencies. For canopies and stuff that are not a problem if they come off, I use Micro Glaze or similar transparency glue. However, that stuff is not very strong, and with windows and such that might pop loose and end up inside model, I use epoxy. It will not craze transparent plastic, yet is very strong.
CA glue continues to frustrate me! It either sets too fast, or not fast enough, or runs when you don’t want it to, or doesn’t flow when you do. And I’m always finding that it grows ‘fuzzies’ when it sets. I use it for pretty much nothing.
If I want something to set quickly, I usually pull out the Flex-I-Weld, applied with either a fine brush, tip of a toothpick or Touch-N-Flow. I’ll still usually back it up with epoxy after that sets and dries.
Epoxy is my friend, though. I try to line up several pieces to glue together when I mix up a batch, then put them together before the mixed stuff sets. It is kind of wasteful, though, you usually mix up more than you can use, and the stuff in the bottles usually gets old before I can use it all. It’s cheap enough, though, so I just go get more at the hardware store. It works great for putting items of different material together. I also use it to reinforce weak joints.
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
Try gel CA. In addition to not needing as close of a fit as regular, it sets a lot slower. If it sets too slow you can use accelerator to speed it up.
I’m a glue junkie! Something new comes out I gotta buy it.
I have a shelf with about 50 different kinds of “adhesives”. That’s not counting the different variants of super glues, PVA’s, and epoxies.
In one of the other FSM forums someone extolled a new glue, Locktite’s Go2 glue, for gluing transparencies. He said it was strong but did not fog. I am trying it on a kit I am working on, and so far it seems to work well. I’ll know for sure when I go to mask the windows before painting- we’ll see if they pop inside the fuselage while I work on the masking!
Hobby Lobby has a glue called G-S Hypo Cement sold in the jewelry supplies department. Works FANTASTIC on clear parts (i.e. canopies). Its dries as strong as regular styrene glue, dries clear and doesn’t craze or fog. It comes with a very fine needle-like tip for precise application. Beats the heck outta using a PVA glue. $3-$4.
I’m pretty sure its what some would call “watch crystal cement”.