Hi all, here's a tip i developed today for making weld beads. firstly i tried some styrene rod and found that the rod was fairly hard despite repeated applications of cement and was difficult to make a weld bead. and then i got the idea to use my old tube of Revell Plasto putty since it will stick to plastic on its own and is soft enough to make weld beads easily.

to make application easier and more precise, i looked to the pastry world and realized i could make a "piping bag" to extrude a bead of the putty. so i took a small ziplock bag and snipped off one corner and filled a small amount of putty into the bag:

with a little practice, i was able to make a consistent bead and using an old No. 11 blade with the tip sanded down to a rounded point i made the weld marks:

and here it is on an in progress build:

(this photo shows the comparison between the styrene rod and putty)

ive only tested this with Revell Plasto but im sure this would work with other brands of plastic putty. also, it may be easier to use a syringe with an appropriate size of needle since the needle can more easily reach tight spaces (although the syringe would probably be a write off at the end, so have a few handy).