That's right, make the best ABS glue at home from stuff you have lying around. This is a very simple glue to make and won't take but 5-10 minutes. Best of all, it's made from ABS so when you are glueing it is bonding to itself and will have some flexibility to it that super glues won't have.

This is not my original idea so I don't want to take credit for coming up with this. Hopefully though I can bring it to the attention of a community that I think can really benefit from this. In researching ABS glue I came across a few videos on how to make it.

Here is one:

Here

Here is another:

here


Best for ABS to ABS plastic pieces

Same process works with Styrene. Shave down some styrene pieces and add acetone for a Styrene glue. holds extremely well and has that flexibility.

Things you'll need;

Scrap ABS Plastic
Acetone (Industrial Grade or 100% - Not nail polish)
A Jar (make sure it won't melt from the Acetone)
A Ventilated Space

1) Gather the items you'll need.


2) Scrape or file down the ABS to small bits. Solid chunks won't work as well.


3) Put that filed down ABS into your jar and add some Acetone to the jar. How much you add depends on the desired thickness of the glue you want. There is "ABS Juice," ABS Glue" and "ABS Slurry." I tend to use the Slurry or even a bit thicker. Swish it around a little bit and stir it from time to time (I just use a toothpick or BBQ skewer). Also, open your container from time to time to release some of the Acetone gas.


4) On the left is after about an hour. On the right is overnight. You'll have to plan ahead before it gets the point that it's useable.


At this point, you use it as regular glue. Sand down where you want to use it or chew up the plastic a bit so that your glue has something to bite into and apply. Press the part glued for about 30-40 seconds and let it sit. Actual dry time is dependent on your mixture. Also, make sure to test your brush or applicator of choice in straight Acetone to make sure it doesn't melt.

Acetone will evaporate from time to time so you may need to add some more Acetone after a while to get it to a useable glue state.

One last thing is that you can make your own colors. If you have red ABS that you've shaved down, you'll get a red glue. You can see that for the most part I used yellow and grey and got a muted yellow glue. If you're only doing a small part of a custom and don't want any excess glue to show you can use a similar color ABS to make it not stand out.

Hopefully this is of use in the Radicons community. Again, not my idea, but I'm happy to show it off.

Strength testament:
This is the 3-Step Grimlock from the RID line. For those not familiar the tail is a separate piece. My 2 year old would pop his tail off daily. I got tired of trying to find it every day so I mixed up some slurry and that tail hasn't come off it 3+ weeks!


Strength testament #2:
This is what lead to me researching ABS glues. I put some exhaust pipes on Magnus here and where they attach to is a long panel. You have to push that panel in to tab it in. Because it's a big panel is bends quite a bit. Any super glue I used would break. After the Slurry mixture I have no issues. The panel still bends, but because the Slurry has some give to it as well being made from the same ABS plastic it has some give to it as well.


Side note - I used this stuff on some Spawn figures as well. Often times I used it on blades that had very little contact area with the arm or leg and this has worked great. I could pick up the figure by the blade and wiggle it around a bit and it would stay on.

 

2 panels making a 90 degree angle? Haven't done that yet. I guess I would approach it as if you were gluing it and give it a square / rectangle piece along the crease for support.

I use about the same amount that I would have used with glue.

Unsure about this one. I think for it to dry nice and hard it would have to be thicker mixture. That being the case I don't know that it would fill in all of the details you might want.

Forgot to mention that this mixture is not the greatest for styrene to styrene pieces. Just doesn't hold. I've been meaning to try this same method with styrene. Shave some down, add acetone to that and see if that would work for styrene pieces. Or a half and half mixture of ABS and styrene. I'm just thinking out loud now.

 

I would like to note that this stuff works best on ABS plastic only. It wont work for PVC *soft plastic*, Styrene, or PLA plastics.

 

Grammar edit and condense.

Be sure to go back to the original thread to see if any other information has been posted since this post (06/10, 0310 EST).