As you can see from my posts I am new to this forum, and new again after 30 years away from the RC world. I do like these new electrics!

I have spent the last few weeks reading and relearning from the forum.

I asked a few dumb questions and have learned to search first, but I cannot find much about glue?

I know what I like to use on balsa & wood, but what is best for foam? In general what are the pros and cons of:
Epoxy
Hot Glue
Contact Cement
CA (thin, med, odorless, accelerators, etc) I read it makes a hard joint?
Or something better for around water, I want to build a few seaplanes too.

Thanks,
Bill

Add ShoeGoo to your list of adhesives.

Epoxys are waterproof, heavier than CA glues but fill gaps, good on foam, but much harder than foam, you tend to put larger amounts on and there hard to sand away , especialy near foam

Cyanos are quite a hard joint, they used to brittle with age but good brands now dont age in the same way

Odorless cyanos are naturaly much more flexable, fully water resistant even to warm water and dont fog canopies / melt foam, lighter and easier to use

Polyurethane glues, set hard, like epoxy but arnt as strong, but far stronger than needed, waterproof, expand to fill gaps, but can be slow cure and loose strength as they foam up to fill gaps, can be mesy as they expand dependant on moisture, so it depends how damp things are how much they expand

Some contact cements are good on foam, some arnt there flexable but again take longer to dry than an odorless cyano and tend to `dry out` with age and crumble away

Shoegoo, OK

Also, I have found "Fabri-Tac" from beacon adhesives (used by those of us that don't sew) bonds fabric to fabric and wood very well and is water proof and felexable. Think of gluing cloth fabric like a shirt and then washing it in the washing machine and after a few time it is still together and still felexable!

I will have to test it on foam.

Bill

Thanks Wil,
I tend to think the contact cement, no matter how good it is, has that final placement flaw. If you get the pices a 1/2 a 32nd off in it is off forever! You only get one chance at placement!

For Foam, only use "Foam Safe CA", when it comes to CA use.
Best source is www.pkindustries.net
It is the only CA that I use, since I have a really terrible time with the fumes of regular CA. A bit pricey, but at least I can breathe with the Foam Safe stuff.

What I currently have

medium CA.

For balsa its my default glue

5 minute epoxy.
microballoons
lightweight glass cloth.

These three in various combinations handle most high stress areas of glueing - typically wire undercarriages to ply formers and the like. Also foam glueing.

Aliphatic
Useful when sheeting and you need the shuffle time, or for ordinary construction in not in a hurry. Or for foam if there is large enough area to hold fast. Its not THAT brilliant for foam,. but it works.

Canopy glue

For canopies, of course.

Car body filler or 'liquid metal'. Useful for casting small things or when building bits out of metal or paxolin.

Milliput

This is a two part epoxy putty, that is heavy, but similar to the above.

Balsa cement

I haven't opened this yet. Maybe I will one day.

Solder and plumbers paste flux.

For wire undercarts and the like.
Use multicore resin cored solder for wiring, and heat shrink tube to cover.

Thanks Vintage, I will check out that "liquid metal" and the Aliphatic, sometimes we have all the time in the world to build these plane and that can be the best part! Thanks Again, Bill

You might want to do some research on some of the medical problems some posters here have experienced with CA use over time. In addition, my current kit instructions don't recommend its use for wings that will be stressed because it tends to get brittle with age.

I have backed off using CA for anything except tacking to hold a sub structure in place. I use aliphatic (and epoxy where needed ) almost exclusivly, it gives me time to align things before the glue hardens and doesn't cause my asthma to flare up.

I have also found that using a small artist's brush to apply the aliphatic results in uniform application with minimal use of glue, several kits I built this way resulted in the final weight coming in lighter that expected. If you really need strength, you can wet out the joint with aliphatic mixed with water, then glue normally just before the glue sets.

I encountered the physical problems with ordinary CA many years ago.
Pneumonia type symptoms, very bad!
In winter, working inside it's partcularly a problem.
User Friendly Odorless CA works OK.
But I prefer Aliphatic for most work.
Epoxies for stuff holding expensive stuff on; for firewalls, landing gear structure, dihedral braces...
I just built a Dumas Eindecker III using Ambroid, for the complete nostalgia feeling.

Well vented work areas with any of this stuff has to be the right thing to do!

I also get asthma quite badly, but the main culprit is balsa dust. This is a real nasty.

As someone somewhere in some thread mentioned, CA fumes can literally glue up your lungs. Its not good stuff - it does cough up in time, but that may be something you don't care to mess with.

Haven't tried odorless yet...

Believer it or not I was going to ask if you could still get high on this stuff on my first post, but at my age that wouldn't be cool.

Originally Posted by Sparky Paul

I just built a Dumas Eindecker III using Ambroid, for the complete nostalgia feeling.

Ambroid, good way to fly without a model. I suspect the reason that most of the models build in my youth didn't fly well, was because I was stoned half the time from the glue fumes when I build them -- who knew?

Since really getting back into racing tunnel hulls last fall I have built several wood and wood and foam boats and started useing West Systems epoxy, hardners and fillers. It starts out thinner than even finishing resin, but with the addition of various fillers you have different epoxy's from thin to very thick or even colored. You buy a larger amount but the fillers last forever and the epoxy is available in quart size, use pump dispenser, accurate and easy. Check out the web site as they have a full useage and application guides and tips.

Doug