Cyano glue

Never found that, what material is it, could it be too smooth and need scratching a bit for glue to get grip ?

Cheers, Simon

It needs moisture to cure. A trick I use is to breat on the parts before bringing them together. Cyano (superglue) and PVA make a potent mix, with the moisture in the PVA acting as catalyst.

MBQ

There's a couple of useful tips there that I wasn't aware of. I don't tend to get on with superglue, and like Guy sometimes find that a part just won't stick. I then reach for the epoxy instead...

IMHO epoxy makes a stronger joint, solder is best for metals though.

Regards

Mike

Plastic to copper. Both have been cleaned and keyed. It's most odd. Guy

But not for the OP, joining to plastic ;-)

MBQ

This months Model Rail has 30 odd glues on test, but I haven't read that far yet.

MBQ

The wiki page is quite interesting

I've never tried the baking soda trick.

MBQ

The wiki page is quite interesting

've never tried the baking soda trick.

MBQ

Thanks for that - Hadn't thought of Wiki (still use my old MAP 'Know your materials - Glues' a lot) - A ship modeller (who builds beautiful models) suggested I tried superglue to stiffen cotton rigging, mine ended up looking very ragged and proved vulnerable to breaking where the thread joined something solid. I suspect I got it wrong as his rigging was fine (he may have used it to stiffen some form of monofillament line, not sure and he now lives abroad). CA did work for stiffening very open weave medical bandage for cammo netting,but as the article suggests the white smoke is irritating.

Regards

Mike

There is the other catch thats caught me a few times. Cyano wont fill a gap so must be solid contact during the millisecond that it dries and grips. Well seems like a millisecond to me whilst removing from finger, join, then it falls to floor. More seriously it is a very short period when is critical that bits that have glue on are in contact.

Cheers, Simon

You are joking? They really are trawling for articles! I'm sure they did something along very similar lines not so long ago.

ed

The anaerobic reaction can be delayed if the surfaces do not mate properly. In heavy engineering it is often useful to prime the surfaces (using the adhesive) and then make the joint with a fresh application after the priming coat is properly dry. The joint will self destruct if 375=B0C is reached!

Unfortunately not.

Each month I become more conviced I should cancel the sub. I'm not half way through and already there have been two article sidebars with recommendations for the *same* book by one of the staff writers.

I may have to start taking the Toddler again. Or not bother at all.

MBQ

Unfortunately not.

Each month I become more conviced I should cancel the sub. I'm not half way through and already there have been two article sidebars with recommendations for the *same* book by one of the staff writers.

I may have to start taking the Toddler again. Or not bother at all.

MBQ

========================= I gave up but just buy occasional one on spec if need mag to read when out. Chose MR cos had 2 articles on restoring old locos. Can be summed up as clean wheels, oil bits and one other wow trick - may have been touch up with paint. Think it was 4 pages altogether. One even said theyd replaced body with an old kit body. Thats a regular idea for average modeller. They could do a whole series on the topic, cleaning (rust etc), different oils, should you replace or revitalise motors (nice sidebar on types), should you replace wheels - whats available, what makes/models worth working on.....pages and pages of good advice/articles can be taken by that. Am back to making sure have copy of old Backtrack ot MRC with me.

cheers, Simon

I did that some years ago. The magazine started off really well and I'll keep a lot of those early issues, especially the ones with the Masterclass series. After a while I decided that they seemed to keep rotating the same articles over and over.

I've been buying that since 1981 and have no plans to stop! It has a bad press for some reason but there are nearly always some lovely layouts in there. Look at this month's mag - despite the fact that as someone born in Cornwall I cringe at the name "St Minions" the layout itself is wonderful. The other month Burntisland was featured.

I bought this months. Maybe it's just that a change is as good as a rest, but it just seems "clean and fresh". The photography is good and I particularly like the overall shots that shows the whole layout, e.g., the 2mm finescale electric layout.

MBQ

[...]

Of course they do that. There are lots of beginners out there who haven't the accumulated knowledge that you and other old hands have. For beginners (and many intermediates too, I'll wager), those articles are new.

The Master Class type of article is disappearing mostly for a very simple reason: fewer and fewer people take the trouble to build from scratch, or even do a thorough kit bash. My veteran modeller friends tell me they just don't want to invest the time any more, especially since the commercial models are so much better than they used to be, not to mention the much greater and more accurate variety. One of the consequences is that fewer and fewer people are writing this type of article. An editor can't publish unwritten articles.... ;-)

I buy the mags for the adverts and the layouts.

cheers, wolf k.

Tis true but I wonder if the absolute numbers of kit builders is rising but its a lower proportion than the total collectors/modellers. Seems kit manufacturers are still in business and developing new models as well as refining old ones all the time.

Commercial models are greater variety and better but mostly concentrated round BR times, how many modellers start with BR (what they remember) then move further back as they begin to appreciate the finer things in life (only part humour).

then theres the varieties, you can have an excellent loco like a black 5, but even if you ignore the exotics like Caprotti or Stephensens valve gear theres still an amazing number of structural variations within the class. As for LMS livery variations ......(ok more on passenger side).

Modellers Backtrack managed to fill enough articles - but why did they stop ? - if there was a mag combining their in depth type of research with decent kit, scratch building or modifications then would go for it. Current mags are almost the same in topics and shallowness of articles - far too many pictures for the text.

I buy the occasional one for in depth articles (not many there then), adverts and exhibition dates.

Cheers, Simon

I know that's the perennial problem of magazine editors, but MR seemed to trot out the same articles on a three month rotation instead of, say three years :-)

That's probably true, and a shame.

I have to admit that if I was starting out now, I would probably model in OO rather than P4. My route to P4 was along the lines of:

Step 1 - RTR is crap, so I'll build my own kits or chassis. Step 2 - I want to use 4mm scale track instead of 3.5mm scale, so I need to make my own track. Step 3 - If I'm doing all that, I might as well go scale (via EM)

Now, Step 1 is invalid - RTR is extremely good, despite a few critics (the same ones that call P4 modellers "rivet counters" in a derogatory fashion) complaining about the shade of paint being that of Bert Smith on 13th July 1997, but as *everyone* knows he was off duty that day so

37456 couldn't possibly have been painted in that shade. Step 2 hasn't been properly resolved, but you can at least buy reasonable scale OO track (if that isn't an oxymoron!) although turnouts still need to be built. It's now much more of a challenge to produce a scale model that's better than the best RTR - the goalposts have moved substantially!