Glue to use for joining styrene to carboard former anyone?

[iandrewmartin]

Hi all;

I have some right-sized cardboard tube that I'd like to use for oil tanks on a model railway layout. I'm wondering if anyone has skinned something similar with styrene sheet and is willing to share what glue they used. I'm in Australia and my first thought was Contact (Barge) Cement, but I'm not sure if it would work as intended and whether the cement would have any issues with the styrene. Never done a mixed media build like this.

Would anyone be able to grow my knowledge here?

PS - I hope I'm in the correct forum for this...

 

[urumomo]

Do what ?

 

[Quaralane]

Contact cement may do the trick. It may not.
E6000 can work fairly well with dissimilar materials
As can epoxy

A lot of your CA glues may absorb into the cardboard

 

[iandrewmartin]

Do what ?

So I have a heavy cardboard inner former to which I want to glue a styrene outer to make some oil tanks. I just don't want to have to cut all the styrene inner formers to make a nice circular tank.

 

[iandrewmartin]

Contact cement may do the trick. It may not.
E6000 can work fairly well with dissimilar materials
As can epoxy

A lot of your CA glues may absorb into the cardboard

Thanks for that on the E6000. Available here in Aus at the local craft store (Spotlight) just up the road. I'm going to give that a go next week when I have another day off. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks again.

 

[urumomo]

Contact cement will stick to styrene , roughen the surface with sandpaper .
It's not a super strong bond but is plenty for scale work .
With the end joint bonded with solvent cement the contact cement doesn't have to do much ( probably don't even need it if you're just using the cardboard as a form . )

 

[iandrewmartin]

Good news - discussing the need for the E6000 with my wife, and that when next she goes up to the craft store she says to me... wait for it... "You don't need to buy any I have a tube in my kit that you can have".

If that ain't love what is?

Gold.

 

[Grendels]

I did this a long time ago. I didn't cover the cardboard with styrene, I just sealed it and then used bondo putty to smooth it out. Worked fine.

I also glued an styrene end cap to the tube using 5 minute epoxy.

 

[trekriffic]

2 part 5 minute epoxy should work.

 

[Richard Baker]

I used a simple technique for years- a 50-50 mix of Testers styrene tube glue and Elmer's white glue, stirred together like epoxy. I glued styrene to balsa, cardboard and paper with zero problems. My first scratch builds in the sixties were mixed media like this to save costs and allow large subjects

 

[Hagoth]

Looks like there are some good techniques here. Interesting. I've been making paper hinges by squeegee-ing (real word now) rubber cement into the paper and then gluing the edges down with Krazy glue to PLA and styrene. I haven't tried it but something similar might work to stick styrene to cardboard.

 

[Ohm]

I'd go with the contact cement suggestion. Furthermore, I suggest rolling the styrene sheet to form the curl before gluing it onto the cardboard tube.

 

[Quaralane]

I'll second the forming suggestion

 

[iandrewmartin]

I'd go with the contact cement suggestion. Furthermore, I suggest rolling the styrene sheet to form the curl before gluing it onto the cardboard tube.

Ohm and Quaralane - I usually form my plasticard one way or another before glue, just to ensure that it stays where I put it. I totally agree with you there and hopefully this weekend or next I'll get that project underway and get it done. Thanks for your assistance and support.

 

[Quaralane]

Glad to help any way I can

 

[Ohm]

You're very welcome. Glad to help.
We have an aerosol product called Super-77 that is a contact adhesive. It covers very evenly and bonds permanently.