Is there any kind of clear plastic that doesn’t fog when used with CA glue?
I’m in the process of building another 7/8 boxcab. The box will be wood and I use special CA glue just for wood
on my builds. (DAP wood CA)
Another option is to use real glass and silicone it on the inside of the box.
best option, that comes to mind, is real glass - specially glas slides for microscopes. they come as thin as possible.
John,
In my model car days when I was hyper detailing and making everything perfect I found that I only ever found one glue type that I liked for clear stuff. Good old fashioned white glue, PVA. Thin it down a bit and apply with a paint brush to the non clear surface and then sticking the clear plastic to it. Model plane guys use it to glue on canopies. Excess that sills over to the window is wiped up with a Qtip (dampened if necessary).
You mention a CA especially for wood? What is it, where do you get it, and what makes it special over regular CA. I never used CA on wood until those On30 cars and started using a dollar store gel CA and it works great. Wonder if there is some advantage to one made especially for wood?
I’m going with real glass.
Devon, I bought a bottle of a different kind of wood CA at Woodcraft in Spokane Valley, but it was spendy. It worked great.
I tried DAP wood glue and it works just as good. Once you attach the wood, if you made a mistake, you are screwed. The pieces break
if you try to remove it. I get mine at Amazon.
I might have to blow part of my MIK budget on a bottle of it and give it a try.
Future aka Pledge Floor care makes a good “glue” for real glass. Dries clear with a slight gloss, but can easily be removed from glass.
John Bouck said:
I’m going with real glass.
Devon, I bought a bottle of a different kind of wood CA at Woodcraft in Spokane Valley, but it was spendy. It worked great.
I tried DAP wood glue and it works just as good. Once you attach the wood, if you made a mistake, you are screwed. The pieces break
if you try to remove it. I get mine at Amazon.
John,
I just saw that in the store a couple days ago and bought a bottle of the Rapid Fuse All Purpose Adhesive as I thought it might be better for Styrene to wood or metal to wood as it claimed. It also claimed wood to wood, well in my tries yesterday, not so much. In fact I chucked it in a junk box and went back to Tightbond III.
But I will give the Rapid Fuse Wood Adhesive a try as you say it works well.
Thanks for the info.
Rick,
I’ve glued rough grained cedar together with this glue.
If it has any downfall, its common with most glues. Butt end grain gluing.
I found that if I put some on the end grain, smooth it out with a cotton swab and let it dry. Then the
second coat holds better.
I use titebond III on all my structures and bridges, but is is clamped or nailed or fastened for drying.
I’ve used artist’s clear gloss medium for some situations where I needed to secure thin transparent plastic. For instance, the windshield on my Model T railbus.
On my buildings I now only use real glass, and I secure it with transparent silicone caulk.
BTW, I found a great source for very thin glass. It’s only 0.05" thick:
https://www.surplusshed.com/pages/item/m3012.html
I’ve tried using slide cover glass but can’t get it in large enough size for my buildings.
John, and Ray how are you cutting the glass? Bill
Bill Barnwell said:
John, and Ray how are you cutting the glass? Bill
Yea, what Bill said??(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
Rick Marty said:
Bill Barnwell said:
John, and Ray how are you cutting the glass? Bill
Yea, what Bill said??(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-foot-in-mouth.gif)
get your wife’s diamond ring(*), scratch a straight line into the glas, put the scratch directly over an edge (of a board or else) give the overhang a light tap with any wooden handle - if nothing happens, tap harder - then repeat the procedure, until you get it done as you wanted. (needs some practice)
(*) if that is too dangerous, you can buy something like this:
Oh, I forgot to mention that I “cut” the glass by scribing it with a carbide steel scribe. Then I snap it off. When starting on a new, large sheet of glass I find it works better to cut the sheet in half or so first, then work my way down to the smaller, finished sizes.
And definitely wear eye protection!
BTW, the traditional roller style glass cutting tool won’t work on glass this thin.
Ray Dunakin said:
Oh, I forgot to mention that I “cut” the glass by scribing it with a carbide steel scribe. Then I snap it off. When starting on a new, large sheet of glass I find it works better to cut the sheet in half or so first, then work my way down to the smaller, finished sizes.
And definitely wear eye protection!
BTW, the traditional roller style glass cutting tool won’t work on glass this thin.
Now that is good information.
Thanks Ray
I use a diamond tipped scribe I found at the hardware store to cut glass. I’m not that great as I have about a 50% failure rate.
Yea, my failure rate is high too…(https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-frown.gif)
I don’t think acrylic fogs with CA, but I’m not totally sure.
My main point is that you don’t really need extra thin pieces - for instance, I’m thinking that the acrylic behind this door is about 1/8" thick (maybe even thicker):
And I know this is 1/4" thick acrylic for these windows…
Anyway…more options!
Bruce Chandler said:
I don’t think acrylic fogs with CA, but I’m not totally sure.
It can and will depending on the amount applied and even then sometimes it’s a crap shoot from my experience. I personally think that when you encapsulate the CA fumes it “does it in” however these are only my own observations from the minimal amount of building I do as I’m only contracted on LSC as the ____________.
A couple other things I forgot to mention… When scribing the glass, you want to it on a smooth, hard surface. However, I’ve found that it helps to place a sheet of paper under the glass. Not thick paper, just newsprint or printer paper will do.
Also, I run the scriber over the same line multiple times, and when I snap the glass I do it on the edge of the table or workbench. Sometimes it still doesn’t break exactly along the line. A small excess piece can be broken off with pliers, if necessary. In any case, don’t expect a highly precise fit. I try to build my window frames so that the glass will be secured to the back of the frame, allowing some room to fudge it a little if the glass isn’t perfectly cut.
