Author:  Created:  Rating: EJSAUNDERS Oct. 12, 2002, 07:22AM   0 Ratings     12345     Safe Glues Pretty much any glue would be safe to glue the almost chemically inert paste that Gypsum and water make, and I personally use silicone sealant (the stuff builders use to make your bath/shower watertight) or a general all purpose adhesive that is clear and viscous (it smells like acetone). Check the table below for a suitable adhesive if you are unhappy with the current adhesive you use. Glue Effectiveness* Notes PVA 3 Takes while to dry Aliphatic Wood Glue 4 Takes while to dry All Purpose Glue 1 to 4 May be irritant Contact Adhesive 2 Excellent strength and tackiness but can be harmful if inhaled Wallpaper Paste 5 (Control Group) Tile Grout 4 Pretty useless Cyanoacrylite(Superglue) 1 to 5 Expensive in quantity and not good for lots of sticking Spray Contact Adhesive 3 to 5 Spray not as effective Solvent Cement 2 Harmful Polystyrene Glue 3 Low tackiness and doesn't work very well on plaster Epoxy Adhesive 1 Takes ages to dry Epoxy Putty 2 to 5 High cost Silicone Adhesive 1 High cost *1 = Very Effective, Holds Well 5 = Very Ineffective, does not stick at all Note: Test the adhesive with two blocks before building a huge structure and remember that the blocks need to be be clean of plaster dust or you will ONLY stick the dust together and not the blocks. To combat this I tend to add a few squirts of PVA, hobby or latex house paint or even Future Floor Finish to my mix, which gives the finished cast a more tougher, plastic-like finish which accepts glue much better. Glue Problems Many people, if not all, start by using cheap, and readily available PVA glue. And why not, its cost-effective, economical, and can be bought in bulk 5 ltr containers. However, some people have problems with PVA, which is why they consider other alternatives, so I'll try to answer the common problems ssociated with adhesives below. Isa found a really useful website that you might like to check out: This-To-That, which allows you to select whatever your gluing together from the drop down menus, and then comes up with a suitable list of adhesives. Temperature If your glue remains wet even after 24 hours of drying time, check the ambient room temperature, humidity and above all else the feel of the brick. By this I refer to the coolness, if the brick is cool, it is still wet inside and since the brick is wet, the glue will not dry! Recommended Adhesives Isa recommends LePage's Weather Grip Outdoor Wood Glue. It's water resistant so even damp bricks may stick together successfully and because its main purpose is a wood glue it dries a transparent brown color, which makes it fantastic for modelling grungy water or sludge on dungeon walls. Isa also suggests clamping or applying some pressure to the pieces as it dries, which improves the strength and drying time of the glue. She also comments that it can be sanded, stained, or painted easily, and seems to be stronger than regular tacky glues. I have had excellent success with Bostik All Purpose adhesive, which comes in a blue and purple tube. The adhesive will stick just about anything together, and doesn't take over 5 minutes to dry to a reasonably strong bond that can be handled. The link above will give you an idea of what to look for in your local hobby store, DIY store or even your supermarket (Wal-Mart sells it in the US, and I know a lot of UK stores stock it). Similar products are created by UHU, but ensure you don't get the new version made specifically for children, since its not as strong or tacky as the old formula. UHU also produce a version called Power Glue, which is really really tacky and strong! Copydex, which is available in the US and UK/Europe is a good adhesive for sticking the blocks together with. It does smell nasty, but does dry within a few minutes unlike PVA. Another good property of Copydex is that its strong, but if you mess up or need to move things around, with a moderate amount of force you can pull projects apart again and restick with some more glue. I tend to use this feature of the glue when building large structures in my head. It makes it more stable than just stacking the blocks together, and can be demolished easily when I need to start the project for real. Isa uses Liquid Nails, which is a one-part silicone-based adhesive used in the building trade. She recommends that if you use Liquid Nails or any other construction adhesive, you must "bed" your bricks - that is, wiggle them around so the top and bottom are covered and seated in, which ensures the glue does not just roll off the brick surfaces. Fellyo is quite happy with Aileen's Tacky Glue and its sister 'tacky' version specifically produced for the hobby trade. Fellyo says the glue holds great and sets up reasonably fast - but not too fast so you can tweak the position of your blocks. Both Rob and Calabris use Weldbond, which is a branded form of white glue (PVA) which is stated as being more concentrated than standard white glue, which may be why its so effective. Calabris found it at a local Home Depot, over here in the UK you can find it at CPC. He goes on to say that he couldn't part two glued blocks by hand, and didn't notice any softening once the glue had been painted, which is quite a common problem for most other white glues. Price wise, it is certainly more expensive than an economy version of white glue, but you might argue the price reflects the quality and adhesive properties of the glue. Similar glues are Tetra's PVA and Deluxe Material's Speed Bond PVA. Contact adhesive, such as UHU's Heat Resistant or Glass Fibre reinforced contact adhesive are good for strong bonds but it does take at least 20 minutes to dry on plaster and really smells nasty. Crylic adhesive, produced by Deluxe Materials, amongst others is very strong (being an acrylic-based two-part binary glue), but the downside is its expense. It will stick things that even superglue won't and is nice and tacky, so if you need something tough and don't mind paying, this is the super adhesive you've been dreaming of. Similarly to acrylic based adhesives, two-part binary epoxy glues are fantastic for adhering blocks together, and are especially useful for sticking blocks to other materials like rubber, metal or glass. The downside again is the drying time and when compared to PVA, the cost of the epoxy. Not Recommended Some adhesives are just unable to cope with either the pourous nature of the plaster bricks, or the painting process that transforms our pieces into works of art. The majority of children's glue is fine for small objects or paper, but will likely not hold your structures together, or if it does, won't stand up to painting very well. Things like Gloy gum, which may be available in your supermarket (its a clearish brown glue which smells a bit manky), Pritt or anyone else's glue sticks or most inert children's adhesives fall into the useless for sticking blocks together with category. One such problematic glue is Sobo, which can be found in Wal-Mart, which tends to return to a tacky paste after its been painted or wet in any way, which can warp structures. Similarly, some cheaper tacky glues can also exhibit this, so care must be taken in purchasing a mid-range or branded tacky glue, such as Aleene's which seems to be fine for sticking Castlemolds blocks. Ahre Me Matey asked if Gorilla Glue would work for sticking things, more specifically in his case wood to polystyrene, but it would be appropriate for gluing blocks together with, if it wasn't for a few of its inherent problems. The first of which is its reactivity to water and since the glue will likely be used to glue semi-dry (still wet inside) blocks together, we wouldn't want to be projects that might explode! Similarly, the fact you require Butyl or Nitrile gloves (used for handling strong chemicals or biological warfare protection for soldiers) means its not ideally suited to modellers who have children or pets. Lastly, it is stated to be sensitising, which means that long-term inhalation will cause your lungs to 'shut down', which is of course, not healthy so a respriator is required for moderately large projects. Saying that, it does seem that it would stick almost anything to anything else, so if your looking for that super strong glue, you should consider trying this.  Public Comments Please log in to post a comment    You must be a registered member to post comments. You may sign-in Here.

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