I recently obtained a couple of models at a garage sale, both being in various stages of building. It appears the builder put on a glob of glue and jamed the parts together.
My question is, what is the best way, if there is one, to unglue the parts and start over. It would appear that they used the old “tube type” of glue.
Any help will be appreciated as they are nice models.
Bob Dallas
I heard that freezing the model (stick it in the freezer for an hour or so) may have some limited success. The idea being to get the glue as brittle as possible. You could try that. Good luck - that tube glue is pretty tenacious. 
I have used the freezer trick but left it over night before trying to seperate the parts. You may also want to try using some nailpolish remover to try and soften it up and carefully use an xacto blade to scribe the glue apart. Good luck.
ICIT
I know the “Testors” glue will fall off after about 10 years . Stash the kit’s and wait. By the time you remember them they will be ready to assemble all over again. It will be like Christmas and your birthday rolled into one.
Actually you should try Easy Lift Off E.L.O. The stuffs expensive. About 10 bucks for a 12 oz. can. It may work on Testors tube glue… I dont remember doing this bu ti sounds familiar
The freezer trick will work for areas where there is a small amount of glue. I too leave it in the freezer overnight or even longer. Most of the time after the freezer exposure the parts easily break along the seam with very little pressure applied.
I’ve used a dremel with a sanding drum and a cutting disc but you have to be real careful and the spot has to be in just the right location. The times I used this tool I was able to easily get at the glue spot from the inside of the model and didnt have to worry about scuffing adjacent areas.
Hello!
I’d be very careful about that nail polish remover trick - it melts the parts too easily and could actually help to weld them together. so I say use only as last resort. I would have two other tricks to offer - one would be to use some chemistry, like oven cleaner, or to put the models in drain cleaner - this tends to soften paint and tube glue, but doesn’t harm the plastic (unless too hot - you have to watch the temperature, it is supposed to be warm, but not hot). The second trick would be to use “polish razor saw” - it’s an exchangeable razor blade with sawtooth cut into the edge - once you could buy them, I made mine myself, by filing the edge with needle file. You could use such a saw to cut along the seam with losing as little material as it gets. Hope it helps, have a nice day
Paweł
I’ve used mineral spirits (sparingly) on fresh joins when I’ve made a mistake. Paint the join, pry gently, repeat. Not sure how it would work on old joins. You do have to be careful, too much for too long and it softens the plastic.