Gluing
Gluing...
Gluing is a critical skill in any model railroading.
The best thing to remember is....use CA. CA, or Super Glue as it
is commonly called, is sold under dozens of brand names. I usually
purchase CA that is intended for remote control airplanes. The cost
per ounce is cheaper and it works just as good as commercial Super Glue.
The critical thing to remember with super glue is it works
FAST. You need to dry fit all of you parts first. If you want
to pieces to go together then try fitting them without glue. This
will let you know if there are any size issues. Finding out that
the "peg" is too big for the "hole" is alot easier when there is no glue
involved. For instance, I have found that most Athearn smokestacks
on their cabeese are too big to fit in the hole. They need to be
sanded a little to fit properly. Try jamming it in there with glue
and you will quickly see what a mess it makes.
Another thing to remember with Super Glue is that your
fingerprints may show up on the model. On dark colored cars the fumes
from the super glue react with the oily fingerprints and they show up white.
The only thing you can do is weather over the area with drybrushing or
streaking. I have found that if you use globs of glue you can also
get white streaks on the side of the car, even without fingerprints.
I suggest using just a really small amount of glue.
Below is my WM hopper, if you look carefully on the far
inside wall of the car, you can see the white ring around the inside support
rib (just left of the center of the car). This ring is caused by
super glue fumes. I try and hide the rings when this happens, but
sometimes I don't get them all. This is a very minor case of super
glue damaging your paint jobs.
Below is the bottom of my Western Maryland gondola before
painting. It is obvious where I handled the black part when gluing
it on to the car. The fumes from the superglue make your finger oils
turn white on the car.
