The Little World

Yet again. Where the hell did that patch of superglue come from?

I claim no record for the number of times that I have inadvertently adhered to the furniture. Not that I wouldn’t get it, but it’d be nothing to be proud of. It shows a triumph of sloppiness over organisation – but at least it shows that modern adhesives can do what the packet says.

I don’t mind losing another patch of skin to the workbench as it is made of an old front door that was veneered. If worst comes to worst you can go around with a patch of veneer stuck to your elbow for a few days until it softens. It’s when I ruin a model that I am making that I get frustrated…because the glue joint I was trying achieve never seems to be as strong as the one that unites me to the plastic.

It’s a difficult situation – the parts that are cast in smaller Czech or Polish kits can be scale size, but the attachment they make with the rest of the kit can be far too scale for good construction. You can only ask a certain amount of strength from styrene wisps. Combine this with the ever-thinner cyanoacrylate glues and the tempting pathway that your fingerprint whorls create and you can see where this story, and the glue, is going.

I want to see a new approach to this problem. Larger attachment points for parts would help, as would more efficient ways to dispense cyanoacrylate before the dispenser clogs up. Or gloves that could be worn that cannot be stuck with CA glue.

Or just get the Air Force to paint fingerprint whorls on the fuselages and canopies of its fighter planes and I will be able to follow suit perfectly.