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I have a quick question about wood building kits. I just got American Model Builders #702, The Interlocking Tower. I'm not sure if it is a very good kit or not, I thought it was a plastic kit. It was just the right style of tower I was looking for.
Now the instructions say to use Titebond glue but I know that is not a fast setting type glue. Is there another type glue that is preferred for wood kits?
I'm also not impressed with the peel and stick items in the kit so a glue that would over ride that would be nice too.
Thanks for any info you can give me.
The American Model Builders kits are good quality kits. Any wood glue will work, but the yellow carpenters glues work the best for me. I find the yellow glues like titebond better than white glues. They are tackier and thicker so you can position parts better and they dry much quicker and stronger. If you are planning on staining a wood structure make sure to stain all the parts before putting it together. No stain will penetrate where glue has touched.
The peel and stick trim seems to work fairly well. I have a few structures built over 4 years ago that are showing no signs of the stick on parts falling off.
I also build wood models for a local architechtural firm, and the glue of choice for us is Weldbond. It's like a white glue and sets up pretty quick, but never sets hard like a white / yellow carpenters glue.
The best part, if something gets glued and set crooked, you can hit it with a heat gun and easily pull it back apart.
I like using Eileens' tacky glue for wood kits. I built an O scale general store last year for a friend using it. The kit came with a sringe that you used to apply the glue with and it worked very well that way.
Well I got the tower done and am really pleased with it. The kit was great for cuts and fitting, very little trimming needed. For the first time building a wooden kit it was a great learning experience. Instruction very easy to follow and clear. I went to LHS for some glue and there was a couple of gentlemen there that scratch build RC planes so I asked them about what they use for glues and they showed me a gap filling CA that worked great.
Not so great at pics but you get the idea.
Thanks for the help and info.
From decades of building wooden structure kits and trying every sort of glue out there at one time or another, I've found that Pacer 501 Canopy Glue (used more often in aircraft model building than for model trains) does the best job with my wood kits. Looking very much like old Elmer's white glue as it comes out of the bottle, this glue bonds much quicker and dries totally clear (it can even be used to glaze model windows). Look for it in hobby shops that carry aircraft models.
