Gluing wood freight cars together what glue??

Edavillenut

Member
ok i am about to start scratch building a fleet of about 100 box and flat cars. and i need to have a glue that is going to be strong so i can actully pull these cars around the layout. normaly what i build with wood i just use yellow wood glue or CA. but i want to know if there is something better. the wood is all going to be painted. and the wood that i will be building with is Bass.
 

doctorwayne

Active Member
Yellow glue should be more than adequate for holding things together: I've used it to repair wooden furniture, and it seems plenty strong. I've never been impressed with the durability of joint made with ca unless the joint is also a mechanical one, such as one piece fitted into another. Plain butt joints with ca don't seem to stand up, and even joints that seem to be satisfactory can deteriorate over time. Unless you're really set on using wood, how about considering styrene? It requires about the same amount of bracing as wood, but is much faster to work with, using a solvent-type cement. (I use lacquer thinner, applied with an appropriately-sized brush.) Styrene in not susceptible to moisture, so water-based paints or a damp basement environment won't ruin all your scratchbuilding projects. Styrene can also be made to look more like wood than real wood, too, as you can control the scale or degree of the woodgrain. HMinky has some excellent tips on making styrene look like wood here:

Styrene as rough weathered wood

Wayne
 

Edavillenut

Member
i have built a few out of styrene but do not like the way they came out. no matter how much i try to make them look real they still look like plastic, i am modeling in On2. i build alot with styrene but for some reason i do not like the way the cars look when made out of it. it just looks like a hunk of plastic
 

sumpter250

multiscale modelbuilder
Making styrene look like wood is a technique that takes time and practice to get the results you would like, and each of us has their own idea of what wood looks like.
I still like to build in wood, and I find the "yellow glues" are the best for wood. Elmer's Carpenters glue, or Titebond, are two brand names.
Back to styrene, consider...If you can actually see the grain in a 1/87 scale, or even in a 1/48 scale "board", it probably should have been replaced ten years ago. Look at any reasonably maintained wood siding, especially with a recent coat of paint on it. You won't see a whole lot of "grain". Weathering to the point where wood degradation is that visible, may be an impressive thing to see, but is indicative of wood that is about to fail catastrophicly. It may look "good" but would, in reality, be unsafe to operate. Damaged wood is one thing, rotted wood is alltogether another. Consider also, tool marks. Saw curfs, chisel marks, even marks from hammerheads, reduced 48 times, become virtually invisible.
I'll build 1/87 scale 28' whaleboats, plank on frame, in wood!...until I figure out the best way to do it in styrene.
 

Mountain Man

Active Member
The next step up from ordinary yellow woodworkers' glue is Gorilla Glue. I have used it on several wood projects for the home and it bonds very strongly. The wood fails before the glue ever will. :thumb:
 
A Warning about Gorilla Glue----> IT FOAMS & EXPANDS. Gorilla Glue instructions call for wetting the project with water and then gluing "with clamps." If you don't clamp, the glue with foam and expand and move your wood pieces that you are trying to glue together. When it dries, your wood with be glued out of alignment. This happened to me. Surprise, surprise!!!
 

Glen Haasdyk

Active Member
I've assembled a few wood craftsman kits and all I've ever used to joint wood to wood is ordinary white glue. I've got a gondola on my layout that I built using white glue almost 20 years ago that hasn't fallen apart.
One thing about building with wood, I like to paint before I assemble anything since the glue will keep paint and stains from sinking into the wood and will show a mark later.
 

jbaakko

Active Member
What scale are they going to be? Testors makes a GREAT wood & Metal glue, the green tubes. I've used it to build a wood car, and its stronger then CA on the wood.
ttjx80474_04.jpg
 

hd8091

New Member
I build a lot of wood car kits and buildings. There are only two things I would use,Titebond wood glue,dries to slowly for me most of the time ORRRRR...Formula "560" Canopy Glue , dries clear, remains slightly flexable, water clean up. This stuff is GREAT !!
Your local model airplane shop should have some in case you favorite train store doesn't.
As an added bonus you can use it to make your window glass,It dries somewhat hazy, perfect for those undetailed interiors with no scene blockers.
It is about 3.75 - 4.00 for 2 fl. oz. It goes a long way. I usually put a small puddle on one of the wifes' wide mouth canning jar lids and use a tooth pick to apply. Just don't put to much out as it will start to set up on you. But... just like the Titebond for maximun strength clamp and dry over night. I like the old Silver Streak and Central Valley wood kits so I let the basic box dry clamped over night and proceed. I usually have a production line going with three or four kits in various stages .
Try It You'll Like It..
Tom
 

Jim Krause

Active Member
I just finished a Campbell Scale Models engine house which utilizes wood framing, corrugated aluminum siding and cardstock walls. The Testors glue in the green tube worked well for most things. It dries faster than Elmers. I did use CA in a few places where I needed to get something done in a hurry. CA needs a "primer coat"of itself on wood to seal the grain before you glue the joint together. Gorrila Glue as mentioned above is great but has a long cure time and definitely does foam. I still have to clean up some of it on a trestle that I built.
 

SB7

New Member
Have to include my two cents:

Gorilla glue although the strongest bonding material iv'e found and fell in love with:


is not I repeat NOT to be used in conjunction with this hobby.

It is messy and is basicly a foam, you have no control over it, it will ruin your model.
 

MasonJar

It's not rocket surgery
Gorilla Glue (polyurethane glue) excels at joining dissimilar materials, or hard to glue materials, such as styrofoam, which is impervious to air.

While you do have to watch it, and it is not for fine work, polyurethane glue joins extruded foam to wood or steel studs for benchwork. It also joins styrofoam to styrofoam - because it cures in the presence of moisture, you need to mist one side of the joint, but other glues will not dry at all between the layers.

For wood models, I'm with Glen & Tom - I use white or yellow carpenters glue. I generally use the white with stained wood, as the gluing is done after finishing, so a product that dries clear is desirable if you're prone to excess glue seeping out of joints ;) I use the yellow glue where the wood will be painted after gluing - 1) because it stands up to the "rewetting" that painting subjects the joint to, and 2) The yellowish dried "excess" can be painted if need be.

Andrew
 

60103

Pooh Bah
For strength in pulling the cars around the layout, you should consider having a solid piece of something running from one coupler to the other (or one truck to the other if they're truck mounted. That way none of the strain is passed through a glued joint. You should also plan to use a screw to hold the couplings on.
On most cars the solid piece will be the floor; you could reduce this to a center sill. Tank cars and hoppers with lacey frameworks will be a problem. Once you get all the stresses onto this one piece, the rest of the glue joints only have to hold up the sides and ends.
 
Top