My lovely bride was going to “The Big City,” and asked if I needed anything. Needing a few tubes of styrene glue, I showed her the tube, and asked her to pick up a couple.

Twenty minutes later, I get a call from her. She’s at the hardware store (LHS is 30 miles away, in the opposite direction), “Now what was it you wanted, I can’t find that tube that you gave me.”

“I need glue for styrene, it comes in a red tube, ask a salesman.”

“I did,” says she, “he says that they don’t carry anything like that.”

Sigh. I have been buying all of my glue at that store for the last 8 years. The last time was two weeks ago. “Just ask him for the stuff to glue model airplanes together,” says I.

“But you aren’t building model airplanes,” says she.

Bigger sigh. You see where this is going, right?

“Doesn’t matter,” says I. “Its the same stuff.”

“OK.”

So, she comes home with two tubes of MEK. I don’t know that I’ve ever used MEK. Will it work on PIKO buildings without destroying them? Anything special that I need to look out for? Precautions?

MEK, will soften plastic, in fact it is the active ingredient in some model cements. I find that it evaporates so fast that its difficult for me to use to glue plastic together, but I have done it. Use it sparingly, and on the insides and make sure your seams are tight. If it gets on the outside finish it will mar the finish.

Tubes, huh? Is it pure MEK or mixed with something else? I have pure MEK as its a liquid. Sounds like what ever she bought had MEK plus a thickener like many other hobby glues. I tend to use straight MEK, fill a needle bottle and glue away. If I need something a little thicker I use a hobby glue, but 99% of the time I use MEK. It will bond any type of plastic together (abs to styrene for example). Using a needle bottle prevents too much MEK from going where you don’t want it to go.

Yeah, I think I over reacted. The tube says “contains mek.” It should be OK.

The doctor says, take a deep breath, drink 2 beers and call me in a week.

Yes, MEK is very watery in viscosity.

Greg

Greg Elmassian said:

Yes, MEK is very watery in viscosity.

Yep, but it is possible to ‘thicken’ it a bit to make a filler. I take a glass jar, dump all my scrap styrene in and add some MEK. It ‘melts’ the styrene and make a homemade filler. It doesn’t work as good as the commercial stuff (Bondo) but its free!

I’ve never tried to make just a thicker MEK for gluing parts, but I would think that it might work since the filler works well.

Don’t know about thickened MEK product (unless that is old school model glue) but I love pure MEK. I use it and CA pretty much exclusively. Warnings about pure MEK. As David said it will mar and ruin delicate styrene. It melts them or at very least softens them to the point of deformation if not careful. If trying to glue pieces while bending them into place can lead to the part cracking and breaking if not careful. Like Craig I use it in a needle bottle and apply it to an inside seam while holding parts in position and using capillary action whenever possible. It is a plastic solvent welder not a glue which means the plastic is literally melting together which is a good thing most of the time.

I use a small hobby paint brush to apply the fluid for joining parts at right angles to each other.

The MEK wicks underneath (capillary action). Less mess…no melting/distortion of parts… The trick of mixing up small pieces of styrene to make a “goo” is an old one. I have never had much success with it.

So what happened to the original glue you wanted? Never got it? Hardware store or big box store? I’d say the hardware clerk let you down…

The glue was similar in viscosity to other styrene type glues, so I decided to give it a try. It has a long setup time, ten minutes or more, which is both good and bad, but I can work with it. It takes 12-24 hr’s before I can no longer pull a joint apart, which saved me, once.

I went back and talked to the owner, who is a good friend, and he took me right to the stuff I normally use, made by Dupont. He said the guy was a new hire, and is still learning the stock.

What really boggles the mind is that in the same trip, I specified Krylon UV Clear Coat, matte, and she came back with spay spar varnish.(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif) Go figure.

Steve, that there is why I buy my own supplies.

I normally do, too, David, but how hard is it to “pickup a couple of tubes of styrene glue for models, comes in a red tube, and see if they have any Krylon UV Clear coat, matte?”

Sigh, you’re right, though. Even she says, “Never send a woman to the hardware store.”

Steve, I told my neighbor to get some wall anchors, to go into cement. I described them in detail. The next day she handed me the little red plastic drywall anchors. I asked her if she really thought that they would hold up her large, heavy, outdoor lights. All I got was a blank stare.

But then I do have it easy Steve. Lowe’s is only 4 blocks from my house. But, that can also be a bad thing.

But then we are just as bad with woman things. I was once asked to purchase some sanitary napkins, by my now ex girlfriend. Because I knew that I do not know anything about those things, I asked her to give me the empty box of what she needed, so that I would purchase the proper ones. She looked at me like I was crazy, but she gave the empty plastic wrapper. Matching up the empty wrapper with the full package in the store, I was able to get the right ones. It was probably the only way I would have been able to get the right ones. But I went to that extreme because I knew that I didn’t know.

(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)