I’ve enjoyed building plastic models since I was six years old. Shame on me for not learning about Tamiya Extra Thin Cement till just recently. Through the years I’ve accumulated an impressive number of tools for assembling my models but never really put any thought into the glue that held them together. Scott Bregi, a modeling buddy of mine, clued me in to this cement and it quickly replaced Tenax as my glue of choice.
You see, liquid plastic glues work by melting the plastic at the joining point, not filling the gap with glue like tube glues. Melting plastic makes for a stronger bond and, since this is fairly volatile stuff, dries quickly allowing you to continue with model building and not waiting for the glue to set. The extra thin Tamiya cement is not as “hot” as Tenax or the orange cap Tamiya cements so it attacks the plastic slower, allowing time to position parts precisely. I also found that it’s great for smoothing over the marks left after scraping mold seams. Simply run the included application brush across the scraped seam and watch it fade away. A bottle costs around $3.50 USD and is as important to model building as any other tool on your workbench.
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