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I wonder if cement works as aibrush cleaner too!??? Every cheap airbrush I own (and is still operational) are recently cleaned, maintained + needles reconditioned,all 5 of them.And as each one has specific use don't want to destroy perfect status in department of airbrushes.
Video changed my life. I always build and kit bash in large amounts, then I prime everything in large amounts, then I paint in large amounts. I burned through so much cement glue and spray paint, and I have been looking for alternatives, but now i could simply just refill my cement glue and sprue glue bottles. Huge money saver.
Knowing that acetone melts styrene, and gluing plastic models is actually a process of micromelting plastic together, this makes perfect sense. Thanks a million.
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures I find It Very Sad, Because my brother and I won The mechagaikotsu giveaway some months Ago, and we are Full of runners with no use We won 13 gunpla models. And sometimes I wish I could use the runners tô fix some parts or even more
The 1% difference in material composition is likely a production tolerance. I'm a production engineer and I've used similar loopholes to describe the same product as 2 different ones. No doubt in my mind that these are identical. Great video. I think I've bought my last Extra Thin 👍
Theres a great older video from 1950 of a guy assembling plastic models, and he has what looks like his own made up plastic glue, with the jar taped to a brick. im guessing he had already knocked one jar over. I saw that and thought it was very good idea :)
Now THIS is an actual secret tip. Like, 99% of secret tips are neither secret, nor helpful, but this one is. I was hesitant to get it before, because I found it hard to come by in Germany (i tried during the heoght of covid to be fair) but now I'll look into it again, for sure!
Saw this recently, double checked the product safety sheets, bought a couple of bottles, Juan is absolutely correct and I now have all the Tamiya super thin glue AND all the sprue glue I need. Definitely recommend.👍
Hmmm, I really want to believe this. So according to this logic, tamiya thin will bond plastic and yet clean paint from an airbrush. So it's a bonder and a paint thinner, supposedly? My question is, will it bond my fingers together as well? I always assumed it would. Im confused lol. How can paint thinner bond skin? Enquiring minds want to know.
No it won't bond your fingers, because it's not really glue. It's solvents, and solvents can melt plastic and clean paint. That's how plastic cement works, it melts the plastic and fuses the two pieces together
Have ever got plastic cement onto something you've already painted? It'll flake that right off the surface. So yeah, it does both things very well.@@BlueGillage
I'm going to get the airbrush cleaner and just keep filling my small container. I do enjoy the applicator and the ease of use. Plus less likely to knock it over (i'm a clutz some times)
Thank you Juan, I have just confirmed this through other video's. The benefit with using the air brush cleaner as a glue is that you can still use it to clean your airbrush!
Been hobbying for many years. After watching this video, I feel ignorant, but then smart, so close together it feels like its at the same time. Cheers.
And I was just considering switching from the Revell needle-dropper plastic glue to Tamiya extra thin, too. Looks like I'll be getting some of the airbrush cleaner instead. Thanks for the tip!
Good old plain lacquer thinner, sold at your local hardware store, does the same job and is much cheaper. Lacquer thinner is made of Butyl Acetate, Acetone, and other chemicals. I have used it for many years not only to glue polystyrene but also to clean my airbrush.
Most plastic glues (including one you showed in this video) are a solution of plastic (polystyrene) in butyl acetate, sometimes with some other add-ons. Which means you can revive a "dried" plastic glue - usually becoming half a bottle of transparent plastic - just by adding butyl acetate. And that "sprue goo" is therefore the same solution but with more polystyrene in less solvent. You can also make your own plastic glue by simply dissolvin sprue leftovers (transparent polystyrene for that professional transparent look) in butyl acetate. Which costs close to nothing, 1 Liter for 10 Euros in my local chemistry store.
That's not true, not in this case. Tamiya Extra Thin and similar glues do not contain any sort of plastics. It's pure solvent. Tamiya Extra Thin is a 50:50 mix of butyl acetate and acetone, quick setting version swaps butyl acetate for ethyl acetate and adds third solvent, but I don't remember what it is. You can just pick up a bottle of acetone and butyl acetate and have literally liters of the Extra Thin Cement for just a few bucks. And DON'T add any plastics into it, that's what makes Tamiya Extra Thin so great - it has no fillers.
Heh. Today I learned... Need to get my hands on a bottle of airbrush cleaner even though I've never touched an airbrush. This kind of simple advice is what this hobby lives and dies by. Will happily pass the knowledge on to others, like you've done today.
For anyone interested, the quick setting cement is just 40% acetone, 40% butyl acetate , 20% methyl ethyl ketone (also called butanone). So if you want to replicate it, 4 parts airbrush cleaner, 1 part MEK.
Yeah same goes for Mr cement SP just that its ethyl acetate and acetone. Butanon is used in mr cement the regular version but might be banned soon as butanon (mek) is now on the list of dangerous carcinogen.
Here's a tip for you,just add varying amounts of clear sprue to the airbrush cleaner and you can create whatever viscosity you like to suit yourself,hope this helps
I have used something called EMA Plastic Weld for ages and that is a very similar type of liquid to the Tamiya stuff. It is dichloromethane which can be otherwise bought for less than £5 for half a litre here in the UK. Chuck in a glass funnel and you have years of refills for very little cost.
Thank you! I shared this video on Facebook modeling sites, and everyone who responded said they also did not know these products were essentially identical!
I'm fairly new to the hobby, relatively speaking, and I was literally about to buy the Extra Thin Plastic Glue. I'll be buying the Airbrush Cleaner instead. Thank you so much for the tip!! I'd love to hear some more.
Thank you for this, I believe you. I found you just after ordering both of those, but now I'll have the fancy bottles to refill with the airbrush cleaner.
Awesome! If you have any other tips like this you want to share feel free to send them to juanhidalgo.miniatures@gmail.com I would love to make more videos about this.
I am not a model builder, but I am trying to fix an irreplaceable acrylic part. I hope that this will work better than super glue (CA). Thank you so much for your honesty and advice to your fellow builders.
Well, I didn’t know this, and need to get more for sprue glue and all these awesome Eldar models we need to put together! I don’t mind revells applicator though, and the little extra viscosity for many models. Great tip!
I am very new to the miniature hobby and this blew my mind! I checked, and in Canada, the air brush cleaner (of 250 mL) is actually cheaper ($15) than the 40 mL Tamiya thin cement bottle ($18.99)! 🤣
Where in Canada do you live? I live in Ottawa area and I get extra thin for $6.99 and Airbrush cleaner for $13.99. very similar pricing in Montreal and Toronto too. Fun fact: I bought my first airbrush 3 years ago and after a year of cleaning with Tamiya airbrush cleaner I noticed two of my o-rings dissolved! I called the manufacturer for replacement rings explaining how it happened and he told me to avoid using Tamiya cleaner because it was solvent based and too harsh. He recommended using Vallejo cleaner instead.
I got a 32OZ bottle of both, mixed in a glass gallon jug, now I have enough cement to build a 1:1 battleship AND make my airbrushes squeaky clean for years to come! Thanks!
As a follow-up, as you sparked my curiosity, I checked the difference between the "quick setting" version of Tamiya's extra-thin plastic cement. the "Butyl Acetate" is replaced with "ethyl acetate" (both are common esthers used in nail varnishes), which evaporates a lot faster due to lower flash point. So that's just it. Acetone + an esther solvent. The aceton melts the PVC, the esther is just a filler which when evaporated, lets the acetone evaporate, and the melted plastic solidifies again.
In New Jersey, USA, it's $3.50 for Extra Thin & $10 for a bottle Tamiya Acrylic Thinner. But more In a Thinner bottle & I like the idea of not over glue with paint brush, & also putting old sprues into Thinner basically & making glue.
it`s not (only) the content that makes "cement" more expensive: it is the container (glass) and the applicator. the cleaner is just plastic with a plastic cap.
Awesome tip and I cant wait to try it. Heres another $ saver. Testors paint brush thinner cost like $6 for 1.75oz bottle. A quart of lacquer thinner costs about $10. It works better and you get 16x the amount more. Its the equivalent of buying $108 of small Testors bottles. Again, ty sir.
Ive had my tamiya extra thin for 4 years now building 50+ minis and a couple of scale kits, and the thing is still half full. still a great recommendation juan!
A grest tip, veteran modeller of almost 50 yrs and never knew. I usually buy the glue 2 bottles at a time, buying this in future will get me 3x as much..
I was cringing at thinking about buying another bottle of this stuff. I have seen people make model cement out of a bottle of it but I didn't want to purchase another bottle to sacrifice for this purpose. With this hack I can fill my old bottle and make some cement too! Thanks :)
Hold on... So you want to say that ppl who were using this airbrush cleaner, clean there airbrush with plastic cement? Omg. Ok this is revelation! I bought my self that green pot after start watching your videos and now will keep that in mind for the refill! Love you man!
This is a very useful video. I don't use "convenience" airbrush cleaners, so I had no idea about this. It isn't the cheapest solution though. I use acetone and styrofoam instead of Tamiya Extra Thin. I usually buy a 1 litre can of acetone for 5 Euros (1 litre equals 25 bottles of Tamiya Extra Thin!). The styrofoam (= foam styrene) comes for free as packaging material. Before using it make sure that it's absolutely clean and free of dust, greas and oil. For the 40 ml bottle you start with 35 ml of acetone and an A5-sized piece of styrofoam, about 1 cm thick. Cut or tear off pieces that are small enough to fit through the bottle neck. Pour the acetone into the bottle and add the styrofoam pieces one by one. The styrofoam dissolves completely in the 40 ml glue bottle. If you prefer a slightly thicker glue, just use 30 ml of acetone and carefully add more styrofoam till you find the consistency you prefer. In both cases you'll notice that there's still some room left in the bottle after the styrofoam has "gone". You can fill it up with acetone. You can also use pure acetone. In that case its characteristics are very similar to "Plastic Weld", but decisively cheaper. You want to be careful not to flood your styrene parts with this extra thin glue, especially if you use pure acetone. You can smell it when you open the can: acetone is a very strong dissolvant. It'll "eat" styrene if you apply it too generously, but if you use the tiny brush of an empty Tamiya glue bottle you'll be absolutey fine. Acetone evaporates within seconds and won't leave any residue. Make sure you work in a well ventilated place, but I guess all modellers know and do this anyway. I use this homemade glue since the early 1980s and this way I had "Tamiya Extra Thin" long before Tamiya even thought of inventing it. I got the trick from an old model railroader back then. He built H0 scale buildings from scratch, using sheet styrene. That guy saved me tons of money!
I just bought Some Plastruct Bondene to do plasticard work and build models. I knew there was a lot of acetate in it. This just game me the recipe to make my own batch. Thank you so much!
Thanks for the Info. I like how you thought outside the square. Seems like 85% of any population just buy what's in front of them no thinking around it's chemical structure. Wait until they work out what's in all cleaning products and also how similar the stuff in shampoo's are !
Where I'm from, we can buy automotive acrylic paint and thinner from paint specialty stores. Automotive acrylic thinner works like plastic cement, and has the consistency of water and can be applied the way you used that airbrush cleaner. It's got strong fumes, but it's cheaper than plastic cement.
It’s an MSDS In the US. Material safety data sheet. I’m pretty sure it’s the same world wide. It is common knowledge to me that they are virtually identical but not identical.
This was really useful and well timed, just coming to the end of my current bottle of plastic magic, if I can re use it with some of this I will. Thank you very much
@@Isolated.Outpost a well timed comment, as I've just come to the end of these Tamiya bottles. The Tamiya is weaker, ever so slightly, than plastic magic, however, I don't seem to be able to get hold of plastic magic either, I can live with the Tamiya, so I'm gonna find a refil and stick with it.
tks man two liters of diy glue/airbrush cleaner costs 25 euro . and i never thought of checking the safety datasheets , now i can potentialy mix a lot of stuff myself as long as i have access to the ingredients.
This is pretty darn cool. ESPECIALLY since I bought some Tamiya airbrush cleaner and decided, after one cleaning episode it was way too nasty to use as an airbrush cleaner XD
Awesome. Especially considering the brush in the Tamiya glue bottle doesn't reach beyond one third of the thing, leaving a large part of the bottle untapped.
55 years of building, and I'm still learning. I have both items. I'll use the savings to buy another kit to add to my collection of 57 unbuilt car models. I do find that some glues behave differently from other glues depending on the kit manufacturer, so I'll do some testing
I've refilled my Tamiya extra thin glue container many times from a quart can of Metyl Ethyl Ketone. It's an excellent styrene solvent. It cleans red enamel paint from my brushes, too. The price on my 32-ounce can is $9.00 US.
For me the strat is to get one jar of the cement and then just refill it from the bottle of airbrush cleaner. Saves money and works well because once the jar is getting low it's hard to get at what's left anyways
This was really helpful. I was just about to run out of my Tamiya so I was looking for a cheaper alternative. Weld On 3 and Plastruct both look very promising and are probably stronger but this is all I really need and is even cheaper. Thank you
This was great cuz I have a bottle of it and was thinking about when I need to buy more, now seeing this I can just refill it. Thank you so much my friend
I ran into a similar situation. I've always used Plastruct's non toxic Weldene for model glue. Unfortunately, Plastruct stopped its production a few years back. After some sleuthing I discovered that Weldene is (or was) a styrene solvent derived from citrus fruit oil known as Limonene. The chemical is typically used as a (more or less) non toxic "green" industrial cleaner and solvent. Although it's not easily available (you won't find it at your local hardware store), Limonene is readily found on line and about half the price of Weldene per unit cost (Although this last point is moot since, as I mentioned, Weldene isn't made anymore). I should note however, Limonene is highly flammable and a skin irritant so you still need to take caution when using it.
I bought my jar of Extra Thin a couple years ago and I only went through less than half of it, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over technically overpaying for it. Very interesting factoid though, thanks for that.
Smaller containers of consumer goods are more often more expensive per unit. Often times the amount of materials (boxes, labels, plastic containers etc) required to produce the smaller item is higher than the bigger one for the same volume. Also smaller volume containers require the factory machinery to run faster in some fashion to match the volume of the larger items. Even if these costs are the same somehow there is the convenience factor that is often a markup done my the marketing guys.
As a firm non-believer of life hacks, man... this is ONE HELL OF A LIFE HACK!! Will definitely get myself some airbrush cleaner next time i'm at my hobby shop :) Would love to see if you have any other tips which you might take for granted but is completely new info to most of us!
Very clever - I am a Chem. Eng. and huge fan of reading the MSDS of the different hobby items and see what else works there. And even making your own, as you state. Very neat!
I've gone even cheaper amd used cellulose thinners to glue sturen sheet parts together on a scratch build project. Tbh I'm not convinced it's as strong a bond as the revell contacta thing with the needle dispenser, but it certainly works.
If you want to save even more money, buy just straight acetone, which works great as a polystyrene solvent. You can get it at a building supply store or paint store, or if you don't want to buy a half-liter at a time, you can get acetone as a nail-polish remover as well. Acetone is quite volatile, so it will evaporate quite quickly, for both good and ill. When flowed into a gap, though (as is normal for plastic model kit assembly), it has plenty of time to soften and weld the joint.
selling two of the same products for different prices is absolutely standard practice in pretty much every industry from food to pharmaceuticals. The reason they do this, in my opinion, is so if they ever get asked what the difference between those two is they can reply "it's a different formula" and it wouldn't be a blatant lie.
A even cheaper option is MEK, methyl ethyl ketone. Available in North America, but don’t know about Europe. It is toxic, but Canadian Tire in Canada sells it in manageable 1 litre containers.
Huge price difference. I just looked and the airbrush thinner where I am(Canada) is $16.50 and the thin glue is $9.00 for the two same sizes you showed. 40 ml into 250 ml is 6.25 times difference. Works out to $56.25 to buy 6 1/4 small bottles.
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I wonder if cement works as aibrush cleaner too!???
Every cheap airbrush I own (and is still operational) are recently cleaned, maintained + needles reconditioned,all 5 of them.And as each one has specific use don't want to destroy perfect status in department of airbrushes.
It does, but it's an extremely aggressive cleaner so be careful with o-rings and plastic or rubber parts
Video changed my life. I always build and kit bash in large amounts, then I prime everything in large amounts, then I paint in large amounts. I burned through so much cement glue and spray paint, and I have been looking for alternatives, but now i could simply just refill my cement glue and sprue glue bottles. Huge money saver.
Happy to help!!
Knowing that acetone melts styrene, and gluing plastic models is actually a process of micromelting plastic together, this makes perfect sense. Thanks a million.
Happy to help
@@JuanHidalgoMiniaturesIs there any substitute for acetone? In my country 100% acetone cannot be sold by anyone...
@miguelpaivabezerra34 not that i know of sorry
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures I find It Very Sad, Because my brother and I won The mechagaikotsu giveaway some months Ago, and we are Full of runners with no use
We won 13 gunpla models. And sometimes I wish I could use the runners tô fix some parts or even more
The 1% difference in material composition is likely a production tolerance. I'm a production engineer and I've used similar loopholes to describe the same product as 2 different ones. No doubt in my mind that these are identical. Great video. I think I've bought my last Extra Thin 👍
Thanks mate, good to have confirmation of my suspicions from a professional
I bet there is a lot of old modeller wisdom out there that not everyone knows. Might be an interesting miniseries to research.
Indeed! I was genuinely surprised people didn't knew this. It might be cool to look for more tips like this
Theres a great older video from 1950 of a guy assembling plastic models, and he has what looks like his own made up plastic glue, with the jar taped to a brick. im guessing he had already knocked one jar over. I saw that and thought it was very good idea :)
Old (and new, they still come out!) modelling magazines are treasure throve of modelling knowledge!
Also, things like basic chemistry seem also lost on the last couple of generations
I mean it was only like... December when I learned about Sprue Goo
I've been building models for 40 years, I had no idea. Thank you.
Happy to help 😘
Now THIS is an actual secret tip. Like, 99% of secret tips are neither secret, nor helpful, but this one is. I was hesitant to get it before, because I found it hard to come by in Germany (i tried during the heoght of covid to be fair) but now I'll look into it again, for sure!
Happy to help, I never do clickbait. I always deliver
To be honest, Juan is one of the few youtubers (that I know at least) who provide actual and useful tips
AWWWWWW 😘
Saw this recently, double checked the product safety sheets, bought a couple of bottles, Juan is absolutely correct and I now have all the Tamiya super thin glue AND all the sprue glue I need. Definitely recommend.👍
Thanks. Happy to help
Hmmm, I really want to believe this. So according to this logic, tamiya thin will bond plastic and yet clean paint from an airbrush. So it's a bonder and a paint thinner, supposedly? My question is, will it bond my fingers together as well? I always assumed it would. Im confused lol. How can paint thinner bond skin? Enquiring minds want to know.
No it won't bond your fingers, because it's not really glue.
It's solvents, and solvents can melt plastic and clean paint. That's how plastic cement works, it melts the plastic and fuses the two pieces together
Have ever got plastic cement onto something you've already painted? It'll flake that right off the surface. So yeah, it does both things very well.@@BlueGillage
I'm going to get the airbrush cleaner and just keep filling my small container. I do enjoy the applicator and the ease of use. Plus less likely to knock it over (i'm a clutz some times)
Great idea
Thank you Juan, I have just confirmed this through other video's. The benefit with using the air brush cleaner as a glue is that you can still use it to clean your airbrush!
And it does an amazing job at that!
Been hobbying for many years. After watching this video, I feel ignorant, but then smart, so close together it feels like its at the same time. Cheers.
Happy to help 😘
And I was just considering switching from the Revell needle-dropper plastic glue to Tamiya extra thin, too. Looks like I'll be getting some of the airbrush cleaner instead. Thanks for the tip!
Happy to help
Good old plain lacquer thinner, sold at your local hardware store, does the same job and is much cheaper. Lacquer thinner is made of Butyl Acetate, Acetone, and other chemicals. I have used it for many years not only to glue polystyrene but also to clean my airbrush.
Most plastic glues (including one you showed in this video) are a solution of plastic (polystyrene) in butyl acetate, sometimes with some other add-ons. Which means you can revive a "dried" plastic glue - usually becoming half a bottle of transparent plastic - just by adding butyl acetate. And that "sprue goo" is therefore the same solution but with more polystyrene in less solvent. You can also make your own plastic glue by simply dissolvin sprue leftovers (transparent polystyrene for that professional transparent look) in butyl acetate. Which costs close to nothing, 1 Liter for 10 Euros in my local chemistry store.
Good tip!
That's not true, not in this case. Tamiya Extra Thin and similar glues do not contain any sort of plastics. It's pure solvent. Tamiya Extra Thin is a 50:50 mix of butyl acetate and acetone, quick setting version swaps butyl acetate for ethyl acetate and adds third solvent, but I don't remember what it is. You can just pick up a bottle of acetone and butyl acetate and have literally liters of the Extra Thin Cement for just a few bucks. And DON'T add any plastics into it, that's what makes Tamiya Extra Thin so great - it has no fillers.
@@Trakkson 20% MEK is the third solvent. 40% ethyl acetate, 40% acetone, and 20% butannon (MEK)
@@viper29ca yeah and i dont think the MEK-sub is the same thing as what they use
@@AngusBeef0 Not saying anything about what will sub with what, just explaining what goes in to Tamiya Extra Thin Quickset.
Heh. Today I learned...
Need to get my hands on a bottle of airbrush cleaner even though I've never touched an airbrush.
This kind of simple advice is what this hobby lives and dies by. Will happily pass the knowledge on to others, like you've done today.
Thanks 😘
My first bottle of tamiya was just running out! Absolute lifesaver and legend!!
Happy to help
For anyone interested, the quick setting cement is just 40% acetone, 40% butyl acetate , 20% methyl ethyl ketone (also called butanone). So if you want to replicate it, 4 parts airbrush cleaner, 1 part MEK.
AWESOME TIP
Sorry for what may be a dumb question but what is MEK?
Methyl Ethyl Ketone
awesome, i just went looking for this and you answered it all :)
Yeah same goes for Mr cement SP just that its ethyl acetate and acetone. Butanon is used in mr cement the regular version but might be banned soon as butanon (mek) is now on the list of dangerous carcinogen.
Here's a tip for you,just add varying amounts of clear sprue to the airbrush cleaner and you can create whatever viscosity you like to suit yourself,hope this helps
NICE TIP!
I have used something called EMA Plastic Weld for ages and that is a very similar type of liquid to the Tamiya stuff. It is dichloromethane which can be otherwise bought for less than £5 for half a litre here in the UK. Chuck in a glass funnel and you have years of refills for very little cost.
Awesome tip!
So glad i keep the old empty containers. Thanks for the tip im gonna refill my empties!
Happy to help
Thank you! I shared this video on Facebook modeling sites, and everyone who responded said they also did not know these products were essentially identical!
Happy to help!!
I'm fairly new to the hobby, relatively speaking, and I was literally about to buy the Extra Thin Plastic Glue. I'll be buying the Airbrush Cleaner instead. Thank you so much for the tip!! I'd love to hear some more.
Thanks, happy to help
Thank you for this, I believe you. I found you just after ordering both of those, but now I'll have the fancy bottles to refill with the airbrush cleaner.
Awesome
So awesome, I’ve been in the hobby for 25 years and I never knew this. I knew a few others but this is great.
Awesome! If you have any other tips like this you want to share feel free to send them to
juanhidalgo.miniatures@gmail.com
I would love to make more videos about this.
I own both products, tried it, and it works.
I would never have guessed.
Happy to help, I've been using the cleaner for both things for years
I am not a model builder, but I am trying to fix an irreplaceable acrylic part. I hope that this will work better than super glue (CA). Thank you so much for your honesty and advice to your fellow builders.
I am so glad I have never bought this airbrush cleaner... Thank you for a great resource!
Happy to help
Well, I didn’t know this, and need to get more for sprue glue and all these awesome Eldar models we need to put together! I don’t mind revells applicator though, and the little extra viscosity for many models. Great tip!
Happy to help
I am very new to the miniature hobby and this blew my mind! I checked, and in Canada, the air brush cleaner (of 250 mL) is actually cheaper ($15) than the 40 mL Tamiya thin cement bottle ($18.99)! 🤣
Yep
Where in Canada do you live? I live in Ottawa area and I get extra thin for $6.99 and Airbrush cleaner for $13.99. very similar pricing in Montreal and Toronto too. Fun fact: I bought my first airbrush 3 years ago and after a year of cleaning with Tamiya airbrush cleaner I noticed two of my o-rings dissolved! I called the manufacturer for replacement rings explaining how it happened and he told me to avoid using Tamiya cleaner because it was solvent based and too harsh. He recommended using Vallejo cleaner instead.
I got a 32OZ bottle of both, mixed in a glass gallon jug, now I have enough cement to build a 1:1 battleship AND make my airbrushes squeaky clean for years to come! Thanks!
Happy to help
I have so many Tamiya ratios with sprue glue in different amounts. This is such an amazing idea.
Awesome! Glad I could help you
Damn near 30 years in this hobby and I was today years old when I found out about this. Thank you!
Happy to help
As a follow-up, as you sparked my curiosity, I checked the difference between the "quick setting" version of Tamiya's extra-thin plastic cement. the "Butyl Acetate" is replaced with "ethyl acetate" (both are common esthers used in nail varnishes), which evaporates a lot faster due to lower flash point. So that's just it. Acetone + an esther solvent. The aceton melts the PVC, the esther is just a filler which when evaporated, lets the acetone evaporate, and the melted plastic solidifies again.
Super interesting
In New Jersey, USA, it's $3.50 for Extra Thin & $10 for a bottle Tamiya Acrylic Thinner. But more In a Thinner bottle & I like the idea of not over glue with paint brush, & also putting old sprues into Thinner basically & making glue.
Yeah it's great for doing Sprue Goo
it`s not (only) the content that makes "cement" more expensive: it is the container (glass) and the applicator. the cleaner is just plastic with a plastic cap.
That is true that's why I suggest buying one and just refilling it
40 years in the hobby and no clue… this just blew my mind.. I need to pay better attention. Thank you
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Awesome tip and I cant wait to try it. Heres another $ saver. Testors paint brush thinner cost like $6 for 1.75oz bottle. A quart of lacquer thinner costs about $10. It works better and you get 16x the amount more. Its the equivalent of buying $108 of small Testors bottles. Again, ty sir.
Awesome!
Ive had my tamiya extra thin for 4 years now building 50+ minis and a couple of scale kits, and the thing is still half full. still a great recommendation juan!
Oh yeah it last for a long time for sure
A grest tip, veteran modeller of almost 50 yrs and never knew. I usually buy the glue 2 bottles at a time, buying this in future will get me 3x as much..
Exactly! You refill the empty bottles. It's also perfect to make sprue goo
I don't hate blue, but I do love Juan Hidalgo! Thanks for the tip.
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I did not know that. With such a simple mixture, I'm definitely going to make my own when I run out next time.
Awesome
I was cringing at thinking about buying another bottle of this stuff. I have seen people make model cement out of a bottle of it but I didn't want to purchase another bottle to sacrifice for this purpose. With this hack I can fill my old bottle and make some cement too! Thanks :)
Exactly! It's a great info to have
Hold on... So you want to say that ppl who were using this airbrush cleaner, clean there airbrush with plastic cement?
Omg.
Ok this is revelation! I bought my self that green pot after start watching your videos and now will keep that in mind for the refill!
Love you man!
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Thx man. Great job. I love the thin cement and now you gave me a cheaper option
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This is a very useful video. I don't use "convenience" airbrush cleaners, so I had no idea about this. It isn't the cheapest solution though.
I use acetone and styrofoam instead of Tamiya Extra Thin. I usually buy a 1 litre can of acetone for 5 Euros (1 litre equals 25 bottles of Tamiya Extra Thin!). The styrofoam (= foam styrene) comes for free as packaging material. Before using it make sure that it's absolutely clean and free of dust, greas and oil.
For the 40 ml bottle you start with 35 ml of acetone and an A5-sized piece of styrofoam, about 1 cm thick. Cut or tear off pieces that are small enough to fit through the bottle neck. Pour the acetone into the bottle and add the styrofoam pieces one by one. The styrofoam dissolves completely in the 40 ml glue bottle. If you prefer a slightly thicker glue, just use 30 ml of acetone and carefully add more styrofoam till you find the consistency you prefer. In both cases you'll notice that there's still some room left in the bottle after the styrofoam has "gone". You can fill it up with acetone. You can also use pure acetone. In that case its characteristics are very similar to "Plastic Weld", but decisively cheaper.
You want to be careful not to flood your styrene parts with this extra thin glue, especially if you use pure acetone. You can smell it when you open the can: acetone is a very strong dissolvant. It'll "eat" styrene if you apply it too generously, but if you use the tiny brush of an empty Tamiya glue bottle you'll be absolutey fine. Acetone evaporates within seconds and won't leave any residue. Make sure you work in a well ventilated place, but I guess all modellers know and do this anyway.
I use this homemade glue since the early 1980s and this way I had "Tamiya Extra Thin" long before Tamiya even thought of inventing it. I got the trick from an old model railroader back then. He built H0 scale buildings from scratch, using sheet styrene. That guy saved me tons of money!
Fantastic advice! Thanks for sharing
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures You're welcome. One 1 litre can of acetone saves you 120 Euros for the same amount of Tamiya Extra Thin. Imagine that!
WOW
I just bought Some Plastruct Bondene to do plasticard work and build models. I knew there was a lot of acetate in it. This just game me the recipe to make my own batch. Thank you so much!
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Thanks for the Info. I like how you thought outside the square. Seems like 85% of any population just buy what's in front of them no thinking around it's chemical structure. Wait until they work out what's in all cleaning products and also how similar the stuff in shampoo's are !
Thanks
Great idea. I spend hours goggling glue. All I could find was to use pvc pipe glue. But who wants a blue glue . 🤔 cheers Graham
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I am getting back into building models and cant find the thin cement anywhere but the cleaner I can thank you man!!!
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Where I'm from, we can buy automotive acrylic paint and thinner from paint specialty stores. Automotive acrylic thinner works like plastic cement, and has the consistency of water and can be applied the way you used that airbrush cleaner. It's got strong fumes, but it's cheaper than plastic cement.
Good tip!
It’s an MSDS
In the US. Material safety data sheet. I’m pretty sure it’s the same world wide. It is common knowledge to me that they are virtually identical but not identical.
That's what o thought, but it's very clear that most people don't know it
You can also use the PVC/ABS Pipe Solvent that plumbers use which is even cheaper.
Good suggestion
Thanks Juan, my Extra Thin Cement is close to running out and this video saved me some bucks.
Happy to help!
This was really useful and well timed, just coming to the end of my current bottle of plastic magic, if I can re use it with some of this I will.
Thank you very much
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Worse - plastic magic changed their formula it seems and is much weaker. Looking for something new, and preferred it to tamiya sadly.
@@Isolated.Outpost a well timed comment, as I've just come to the end of these Tamiya bottles.
The Tamiya is weaker, ever so slightly, than plastic magic, however, I don't seem to be able to get hold of plastic magic either, I can live with the Tamiya, so I'm gonna find a refil and stick with it.
tks man
two liters of diy glue/airbrush cleaner costs 25 euro .
and i never thought of checking the safety datasheets , now i can potentialy mix a lot of stuff myself as long as i have access to the ingredients.
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awesome tip....gonna save my thin cement container and pour the thinner in when im low
Awesome idea! That's what I do
Here's the twist: Who would have thought that you can clean an airbrush with plastic glue? Great tip, thank you!
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It is not glue, it is a solvent.
Exactly
Cellulose Thinners can also be used as an extra thin cement.
Indeed they can, that would be closer to Mr. Hobby Cement S
This video has saved me allot of money over time. Thank you Juan!
Happy to help!
I have been using my little green pot for years and I am just about to run out! Thanks so much! Grabbing that cleaner next!
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This is pretty darn cool. ESPECIALLY since I bought some Tamiya airbrush cleaner and decided, after one cleaning episode it was way too nasty to use as an airbrush cleaner XD
It's indeed pretty nasty stuff
Light bulb . Ive been in the dark for so long . Thanks for this.
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Awesome. Especially considering the brush in the Tamiya glue bottle doesn't reach beyond one third of the thing, leaving a large part of the bottle untapped.
You can actually extend the brush out to reach the bottom. It's telescopic.
55 years of building, and I'm still learning. I have both items. I'll use the savings to buy another kit to add to my collection of 57 unbuilt car models. I do find that some glues behave differently from other glues depending on the kit manufacturer, so I'll do some testing
Awesome
I should've said thank you
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Thanks for the heads up on this like you said who doesn't want to save money. 👍👍😊😊😊
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I've long suspected this. Thanks for proving it!
Now my clumsy ass will be able spill an even larger bottle of toxic chemicals all over my table.
Lol, happy to help 😘
I've refilled my Tamiya extra thin glue container many times from a quart can of Metyl Ethyl Ketone. It's an excellent styrene solvent. It cleans red enamel paint from my brushes, too. The price on my 32-ounce can is $9.00 US.
That is a different chemical that also works very well to bond plastic
For me the strat is to get one jar of the cement and then just refill it from the bottle of airbrush cleaner. Saves money and works well because once the jar is getting low it's hard to get at what's left anyways
That's what I do
This was really helpful. I was just about to run out of my Tamiya so I was looking for a cheaper alternative. Weld On 3 and Plastruct both look very promising and are probably stronger but this is all I really need and is even cheaper. Thank you
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you can also use this to melt polystyrene plastic chunks from sprue to obtain a very useful "sprue-goo" Plastic putty for gap filling.
Exactly! Much more cheaply with the cleaner
You absolute genius. Well done.
This was great cuz I have a bottle of it and was thinking about when I need to buy more, now seeing this I can just refill it. Thank you so much my friend
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👍
My last extra fine ! but I'm going to recycle the bottle.
That's exactly what I do
good tip, its hard to get tamiya glue where I am at but the airbrush cleaner by tamiya is stocked at my local Hobby Town USA.
Awesome!!
I ran into a similar situation. I've always used Plastruct's non toxic Weldene for model glue. Unfortunately, Plastruct stopped its production a few years back. After some sleuthing I discovered that Weldene is (or was) a styrene solvent derived from citrus fruit oil known as Limonene. The chemical is typically used as a (more or less) non toxic "green" industrial cleaner and solvent. Although it's not easily available (you won't find it at your local hardware store), Limonene is readily found on line and about half the price of Weldene per unit cost (Although this last point is moot since, as I mentioned, Weldene isn't made anymore). I should note however, Limonene is highly flammable and a skin irritant so you still need to take caution when using it.
Very interesting
I have both products and had no idea! Thanks for the tip! Now will be able to make sprueglue and refill the bottles more easily / cheaply!
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Watch out pal, you're asking for a visit from the Tamiya Mafia!!😱
😂😂
I bought my jar of Extra Thin a couple years ago and I only went through less than half of it, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over technically overpaying for it. Very interesting factoid though, thanks for that.
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The algorithm has sent me here! I've already got a 250ml cleaner in my cart!
Smaller containers of consumer goods are more often more expensive per unit. Often times the amount of materials (boxes, labels, plastic containers etc) required to produce the smaller item is higher than the bigger one for the same volume. Also smaller volume containers require the factory machinery to run faster in some fashion to match the volume of the larger items. Even if these costs are the same somehow there is the convenience factor that is often a markup done my the marketing guys.
That would be ok if the larger one was sold as glue too.
The thing is consumers don't know they have the option, to buy a larger and cheaper format
You are a life saver
As a firm non-believer of life hacks, man... this is ONE HELL OF A LIFE HACK!! Will definitely get myself some airbrush cleaner next time i'm at my hobby shop :) Would love to see if you have any other tips which you might take for granted but is completely new info to most of us!
I will have to think about that but it's for sure something very interesting to research
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures Thanks! Would be great to see :)
This is really helpful knowledge.
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Very interesting. Have to give this a try. Just got an airbrush and have some tamiya paints I was going to try. Thanks for this hack!
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Very clever - I am a Chem. Eng. and huge fan of reading the MSDS of the different hobby items and see what else works there. And even making your own, as you state.
Very neat!
Awesome! If by any chance you have other good substitutes feel free to email me if you don't mind:
juanhidalgo.miniatures@gmail.com
I've gone even cheaper amd used cellulose thinners to glue sturen sheet parts together on a scratch build project.
Tbh I'm not convinced it's as strong a bond as the revell contacta thing with the needle dispenser, but it certainly works.
Damn, I just bought a 3 pack of the green bottle! Such a great tip
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Going to make my own mix from the data sheet and turn the extra thin I have into sprue goo.
Nice idea
If you want to save even more money, buy just straight acetone, which works great as a polystyrene solvent. You can get it at a building supply store or paint store, or if you don't want to buy a half-liter at a time, you can get acetone as a nail-polish remover as well. Acetone is quite volatile, so it will evaporate quite quickly, for both good and ill. When flowed into a gap, though (as is normal for plastic model kit assembly), it has plenty of time to soften and weld the joint.
It's a good tip but I personally prefer the mix in the cleaner but it's definitely an option
WOW, had no idea! Thank you so much for sharing this!
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selling two of the same products for different prices is absolutely standard practice in pretty much every industry from food to pharmaceuticals. The reason they do this, in my opinion, is so if they ever get asked what the difference between those two is they can reply "it's a different formula" and it wouldn't be a blatant lie.
I use Crown MEK Substitute from Home Depot. Works great, the smell isn’t like everyone says.
Awesome
Thank you for the suggestion, i try it out!
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I wish i had known this a couple of weeks ago before buying my first jar of Tamiya extra thin
Buying the first is still a good idea, buy the cleaner for the refill
wow, was literally just adding this to my cart as this popped on youtube!
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When I was a kid modellers used to use pure Acetone as plastic glue. 😮
That also works but I've found it's too unpredictable
@@JuanHidalgoMiniatures I mean, it was 1990s in Russia, so everything is unpredictable :D
Acetone is about as predictable as you could get back there
This is absolutely Mental, in Australia its $9 AUD for the Glue and $13 AUD for the cleaner....this is a huge game changer
Indeed
Thank you for this, just about to run out of glue so VERY useful.
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A even cheaper option is MEK, methyl ethyl ketone. Available in North America, but don’t know about Europe. It is toxic, but Canadian Tire in Canada sells it in manageable 1 litre containers.
Different glue but yeah it works. I think it's what Mr. Hobby Cement S is made of
Huge price difference. I just looked and the airbrush thinner where I am(Canada) is $16.50 and the thin glue is $9.00 for the two same sizes you showed. 40 ml into 250 ml is 6.25 times difference. Works out to $56.25 to buy 6 1/4 small bottles.
Yeah, it's a bargain