Well! Apparently not all lacquer thinners are equal.
After 2 1/2 years I needed to get another can of lacquer thinner to use for liquid cement. Last can was Klean Strip, and the new can I bought was the same brand, but the new can is not the same stuff. New can is not melting the plastic like the old one did. Not sure exactly what is going on, but it might be drying faster, so fast that I cannot get the pieces together quickly enough, and it does not melt the plastic before evaporating. So I may have to withdraw my earlier suggestion.
Indeed lacquer thinner is not a specific chemical, it is merely a product used to thin lacquer paints. Some of the chemicals used as lacquer thinners include MEK, toluene, and acetone.
MEK substitutes are not MEK. They are replacing MEK as it is supposed to be a carcinogen. I do not know what chemicals these substitutes contain. Yes, acetone is a specific substance. So is toluene. Some hardware and paint stores have these later two, some don’t. I think acetone is generally a bit easier to find than toluene.
I’ve been using Testor’s liquid cements for as long as I can remember. One type comes in a plastic bottle with a long, thin hypodermic-like tube and is fairly thick, the other in a glass bottle with a brush applicator and is water thin. I love both. You can also check out Micromark Same Stuff.
My apologies to Modeler#1 for high-jacking this thread.
For anyone that is interested, I have ended up with MEK for liquid cement now. The lacquer thinner and acetone evaporate too quickly. The MEK is slow enough to melt the plastic to make a good bond. It smells awful, which will certainly remind me to be careful with it and work with ventilation! I don’t know that it is any more harmful than some of the other chemicals we use in modeling, but the smell makes me think of being careful around it.
I would also like to try the Weld-on 3, but have not found any locally yet. The Micromark product is, unfortunately, unavailable from the retailer I usually order from.
Theres a lot of threads on this but if I had to pick just one for plastic kits it would be Tamiya Extra Thin. It does almost everything I need it for, but I have to admit my bench is full of different types of glues and cements.
Do you have a reference for this? I’ve looked at the toxicology studies, various government reports and the MSDS sheets from many manufacturers of MEK and have not found this. MEK is being banned in some states but I believe it’s because it’s a VOC and pollution is a concern; it is also regulated because of it high flammability. It has been reported to be neurotoxic (central nervous system) after prolonged inhalation. I’m not aware of any reports that classify MEK as a carcinogen or a suspected carcinogen. There are reports that there isn’t enough data to ‘classify it’ one way or the other. Indeed, several ounces of MEK have been ingested by an individual and, with proper treatment, full recovery with no apparent long term effects. There is, to my knowledge, no data to show that “substitute MEK” is less harmful whatever it contains. Don’t mean to belabor this point but, if I missed something I’d like to know about it. IMHO, our use of MEK in modeling poses very, very minimal risk. Just don’t bathe in it or drink very much of it and don’t smoke while using it.
I either use BSI Insta-Cure + (labeled as Hobbytown USA house brand but made by BSI) or Extreme Power from Hobby Lobby. Both are CA and cost $5 for 1/2 oz for BSI and 1 oz for Extreme Power. Both work great and fill gaps and seams nicely.
I’m a big fan of using lacquer thinner for glueing together styrene parts. It gives a very strong bond, that doesn’t deteriorate with time and the excess glue doesn’t need cleanup if handled right - it just evaporates. It’s also great for preparing surfaces to be glued with CA, makes the bond stronger and it also causes CA to dry faster. Like Don said, lacquer thinner doesn’t have a specific composition - they vary from bottle to bottle, so it’s worth to check a specific product if it works as glue - but if you buy a good bottle of it, it might last you for ten years or so. The checkI use looks like follows: I take a piece of sprue, put a large drop of the lacquer thinner on an even surface of the sprue and wait a few seconds. Then I touch that surface with my finger and take the finger away. If you can see fibres of molten plastic raising between the finger and the sprue, the composition will make a good glue.
As for the toxicity - I looked up the most popular components on wikipedia:
Those pages above say many things - like you can make drugs from one of those substances (that’s why they are substituting it), explosives from the other, they are all highly flammable, and good for sniffing if you really don’t like your contact with the reality, but they don’t cause cancer any more than alcohol and tobacco do. Sure those are dangerous chemicals - but your primary concerns are: 1.Fire 2:Passing out and hurting yourself 3:Throwing up. So let’s stay safe without building a paranoia here. I believe using lacquer thinner from small containers, like nail lacquer bottles (makes a great applicator), to reduce the spill risk, and reasonable ventilation of the work area, plus common sense in handling heat and electricity should keep us all relatively safe.
Good luck with your glueing and thanks for reading, have a nice day
I use multiple different glues; from testors cement (original formula with the needle and the non-toxic version with the needle - smells like orange oil), generic CA, Locktite CA extra thin and gel, Gorilla Glue CA and the Hobby Lobby CA medium. I like to use the non-toxic stuff if I’m working on my projects at work (fortunately I have plenty of downtime at my job and they allow me to work on these at work).
No No No No No No No No. Do NOT use MEK. It is horribly toxic and will KILL YOU. It has not been allowed even in industrial spaces for years. Get it out of the house and to a hazmat center. It does work very well, but it is not worth the hazard. It will destroy your lungs. Nasty stuff. Nasty.
This is a 9 year old thread, and that is inaccurate information. We use MEK quite regularly in the aviation industry and it hasn’t killed anybody, with just common sense safety practices. The miniscule exposure from modeling uses is even less of a problem, as long as you have good ventilation and latex gloves to protect your hands. If in doubt about a chemical such as MEK (something pretty much ALL model cements contain as the main ingredient) the MSDS is readily available on-line.
MEK is still used extensivly in the automotive manufacturing sector. With proper controls it is no more hazardous than any other solvent. As you said the little bits used for modeling would be hard pressed to reach any form of hazard level.
Yup. Reading through some of the replies in this necro’d thread, I think a lot of people are confusing MEK with the old standby solvent 1,1,1-Trichloroethane. That stuff worked like nothing else, but it was INCREDIBLY toxic. That is a solvent that has pretty much vanished from industrial use. Just as long as you don’t huff or drink MEK, its not going to hurt you, especially using tiny amounts of it as cement for your models. I use it to thin decanted Tamiya surface primer to give it extra bite on the plastic, and it also makes a great cleaning fluid for my Paasche H airbrush parts that I just drop into a relish jar full of the stuff and run in an ultrasonic cleaner. MEK substitute was popular for a while in hardware stores due to the myths about MEK…and then actually turned out to be quite a bit more toxic than MEK actually was. Heh…if I had a nickel for every time I saw the same old myths about it, I would be able to retire.
I have been in Occupational Health and Safety in the automotive maufacturing sector for over 30 year. About 80% of my jb seems to be dispelling romours and missinformation.
Besides everybody knows that the most dangerous solvent out there is
Dihydrogen Monoxide!!
It kill thouasnds of people a year yet has never been banned.