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Issues with Italeri Plastic


samhobbs

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Hey,

I'm currently building Italeri's 1/48 Hawker Hurricane Mk.1, beautiful kit in terms of detail, fit isn't so great. However, since the beginning of the build, I have had real trouble with the plastic Italeri has used. I simply cannot get it to stick together. Tamiya extra thin is my go to glue, and is what I used for all my builds, so naturally I tried that first, and even after 24hrs of drying time, the bonds snapped instantly, with little or no pressure applied. I then tried superglue, with the same result. after this I was pretty annoyed, so I broke out the Epoxy resin, which I was certain would work, and even after nearly 2 days to cure, no luck, as soon as I tried to sand the fuselage seam with sandpaper, the bond failed once again. So my question is has anyone else ever had this issue, and if so how did you resolve it. ]

Thanks Sam 

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Hi Sam,

my first thought is have you washed and 'scrubbed' (with a tooth brush) the plastic?

Many advocates of a.) I always wash and about the same of b.) I never wash (quiet at the back!)

Rather than the plastic it may be a build up of release agent which is silicon based and while there, it'll never stick.

You can bet someone'll be along shortly with other ideas!

 

HTH

Paul

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3 minutes ago, PhoenixII said:

Hi Sam,

my first thought is have you washed and 'scrubbed' (with a tooth brush) the plastic?

Many advocates of a.) I always wash and about the same of b.) I never wash (quiet at the back!)

Rather than the plastic it may be a build up of release agent which is silicon based and while there, it'll never stick.

 

Thanks, for the reply, I always do wash the sprues before construction, so I doubt that, the release agent is the issue, however it may just be me not scrubbing hard enough, who knows?

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try different types of plastic glue on some sprue.

Superglue will give brittle joins anyway.

 

Maybe TET is not dissolving the plastic enough,  which is why I say try another glue.    My Italeri Hurricane has had no glue on it as the kit is rubbish in terms of detail accuracy.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234935596-sea-hurricane-148-italeri/&do=findComment&comment=1390213

I'm sure there's more,  if it ever gets built well see.

 

But,  I just dug out said kit,  scraped some flats of sprue, and tried Humbrol Liquid Poly and Mr.Cement Deluxe,  and both were dissoving the plastic,  and after 5 mins have formed a bond.

So, try a different glue on scrap and see if it dissolves the surface and sticks the parts.

 

And try to get a new prop,(the Airfix Hurricane has two for example,so they are out there in spares land)  as that is the most obviously wrong part of the kit....

HTH

T

 

 

 

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On 05/12/2017 at 17:50, Troy Smith said:

scraped some flats of sprue, and tried Humbrol Liquid Poly and Mr.Cement Deluxe,  and both were dissoving the plastic,  and after 5 mins have formed a bond.

Just  a follow up,   the sprue parts I tested have  formed normal hard joins.

 

Tamiya Extra Thin is noted for being very volatile,  if you don't have other glues,  you could try brushing TET some onto  the joining surface first,  to soften the plastic, and then a little  more when you come to join the parts.

 

 

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7 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

 

Just  a follow up,   the sprue parts I tested have  formed normal hard joins.

 

Tamiya Extra Thin is noted for being very volatile,  if you don't have other glues,  you could try brushing TET some onto  the joining surface first,  to soften the plastic, and then a little  more when you come to join the parts.

 

 

Thanks for the advice, I have now managed to get the plastic to stick, using Humbrol Poly cement, just a shame all I had was those messy little tubes you get with starter/gift sets. Thanks 

Sam

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I dabble in railway plastic and particular manufacturers (DC Kits + Slaters + ABS) advises using MEK as no other glue will work on their kits.  I tried the usual glues on bits of carriages they make and once the glue goes off, the kits fall apart as the glue is not strong to melt the plastic to form a bond.  I have come across this problem before, vintage kits when they first appeared used a plastic never seen before, it was a time of uncertanty, building a kit only to see it fall apart on your table.  I do remember them as being strong plastic, if broken resulting in similiar outcome of broken glass.

Check out this forum chatting about Mek and  Slaters if interested:

 

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/125569-butanone-mek/

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