SPA Modeler

Simply stated, this is bits of plastic dropped in a bottle of liquid plastic cement. My first attempt seems to be going ok, but I am not sure at what consistency I should leave it. I'll add some pictures later.

1. Get a bottle of the liquid plastic cement. Testors, Tamiya and others make this. I had an extra bottle of the Testor's brand.
2. Take some scrap sprues (you are saving those aren't you?) and cut them up into pieces about 1/8 of an inch. I used a pair of inexpensive sprue cutters I have.
3. Dump the "pellets" of plastic into the cement. Be careful to not overflow the bottle. You may need to discard some of the cement.
4. Let it sit for a few days, stirring or shaking it every so often. Add more plastic if you want a thicker consistency.

There you go! Liquid Styrene. Mine is about the consistency of pancake batter at the moment.

What do you use it for? Primarily, it makes a good filler for gaps and seams. Since it is pretty much melted plastic, it will fill the gap, harden and weld the two sides together and can be sanded and worked like the plastic in the mode. Can't wait to try it.

May have to try this.

It has been a bit over a week and it is still slurry-like. Added another bit of pieces to it on Saturday.

I got also very curious of this and having an "extra" bottle of Revells Contacta liquid, I decided to "cook" a little bit.

Did exactly as Lyle instructed... cut from a sprue (Eduard) small pieces/pellets, "a tiny handfull"...

I think already here there differences can occure.. Plastic from soft / hard plastic... Different colours etc...



And poured them all into the jar, 1/4 filled with Contacta Liquid...



Almost immediately things started to happen...



Aaand, only 2 hrs later I had very liquid styrene..

Though, I need to add some more "pellets" to get the stuff a little bit thicker... At this moment thickness is like cream..
Had to "smash" with a stick lumps, but otherwise very easy process! Well, so far...



... to be continued...

- Kari

One caveat....I haven't used this batch or any like it yet.

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This is my jar. Full and completely melted.


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Some idea of the consistency


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A better shot of the consistency. Like a very thick batter. I think a shelf queen is about to become the test subject.

I have made mine with laquer thinner because that is cheaper then model brand liquid glues.
It is handy stuff for filling gaps on aircraft that have metallic finishes. Unlike putty is is not porous and has the same concistency as the rest of the kit.

I tried storing the batch I made in a jam/marmalade jar but that did not work. After a month it was all hardened at the bottom of the jar. A paint jar like those from Tamiya should work much beteer, those are pretty airtight.

I "found" a pretty ugly gap in my Jagdpanther, so instead of using stretched sprue to fill the gap, I decided to go for liquid styrene or "Sprue goo" as it is better known..

The mix is similar to the one I made back in June 2014, but this time using TET and Eduards grey sprue.

I think I will still add some sprue pieces to make it one step thicker, but not much. Idea is that it would be sort of self leveling..


And here the annoying gap...



Soon that gap will be history....

- Kari

Watching this. I know the feeling of seeing gaps - especially on armour or aircrafts (wing roots mainly). I'm interested in seeing how it works and where to find it if it's worth getting.

I found that sprue goo is good for very small gaps or filling shallow ejector pin marks. Since it's a filler with high shrinkage characteristic, on gaps bigger than let's say 0.5 mm I use it in combination with stretches sprue.