Gluing Wood

Today I finally get around to trying to start my Scarab project, and I was just wondering if anyone had any tips for gluing wood together. I just need a temporary bond strong enough that I can Dremel-detail the smaller pieces I am gluing on, and then break them off again later for transitioning them over to their bases. Thus far GF9's glue just gets absorbed by the wood. Army Painter's platic glue seems to stay on the surface, but it's amount of "hold" has always seemed dubious to me.

thats cause your using glues specifically meant for plastics; you need a wood glue. i dont quite get what you mean though; you want to glue pieces together to use a dremel to carve details in them, and then break them apart? i'm not quite following what you mean by that. can you be more specific?

I have a foot and a half long slat of wood which I generally use to help hold sprues aloft when I spray prime them. I also have a package of 18 half inch diameter wooden button ends, the kind one might use in a banister or some such to cover up the recessed holes for the screws. I want to glue the wooden buttons onto the slat and use the Dremel tool to shape and carve the buttons into the likeness of Scarabs, nail them with a shot of primer, and then snap the newly manufactured Scarabs off and glue them to their respective 40mm bases, possibly along with a rock for additional terrain detailing. I figure should this process go well, I can pick up another blister of buttons when I'm in the city again on Tuesday and be able to have enough Scarabs to field for the tourney.

This whole process would also let me see if some matte black spray paint I picked up locally will show details sufficiently for me to use it on my Night Scythe.

oh i gotcha now. elmers white glue 'could' work as a temporary bond. but soon as the dremel contacts it might go flying. but i believe they also make a wood glue. you could use a smaller dot of it, say the width of a detailing paint brush handle. that would give a reasonable bond that wont wreck the buttons once you goto break them off.

Ironically, after running some errands and then dredging an old bottle of Elmer's Carpentry Glue out of the basement, I come back to find my one test "button" that I had used the Army Painter glue on has set better than any previous instance of using it. I guess it just needs 30 or so minutes to do it's thing. It is nice to have finally found a use for it, now I just need to see how easy it will be to liberate the Scarabs once I have worked and primed them.

Just an FYI, the wood glue is probably the best for what you are doing. Less is more.

What species are you using? In anycase, I'd likely recommend hitting them with a coat of Kilz to seal before hitting it with anything else. If its a softwood (Pine/Balsa/Spruce) it will likely just soak up what paint you put on it.

I honestly have no idea what species of wood it is, beyond the fact that it came in a blister of 18 from Canadian Tire. As for paint soaking, I was just about to poke my head out and see what the spray paint did to them just now, as they've been drying for the last hour.

if its "hobby" wood, it's likely a softwood. If the spray works, go with it.

I checked the blister when I went out to collect the Scarabs, and it said that the contents were made of a hardwood, which would definitely explain some of the difficulty I had doing relief work on them with the dremel tool. I have to say, though, the spray paint worked wonderfully on it and the bases that I had gritted up for them, doing nothing to obscure the details on the "models" or the bases. I think it worked well enough to trust to use on my Night Scythe.

Roland wrote:if its "hobby" wood, it's likely a softwood. If the spray works, go with it.

Actually, as I don my "know-it-all" hat, Balsa is technically a hardwood.

Anyway... :-)

Elmer's Wood Glue, good sir. Get yourself some big rubber bands to band it together while you're using the dremel too.

Edit: I see it's already been suggested... I suck. Although I can tell you something they don't know. It *smells* great, and tastes not bad too! mmmm older brothers

I have older brothers too.

Wood glue is not bad, but Elmers paste has a nice minty afterdinner flavor.

Aftertaste on super glue is a bit much...

Well, on a related topic, I am about to find out how that spray paint interacts with GW's plastic. I'll keep you guys posted.

I just flipped over the sprue to paint the other side, and I noticed that all the thin straight lines on the model are still all thin, straight, and unobscured. I am not entirely sure what brand this paint is, as it has no listed name on it, but the fine print on the side would possibly suggest that it is made in Saskatoon. The can cost be $6.55 after tax and I was able to snag it from a local hardware store. Heck, the stuff even stinks less than P3 and Army Painter.