Poly-Goop
A home-made filler and glue
Introduction
On the right is a bottle of liquid polystyrene cement. On the left is a bottle of poly goop made by adding small chips of styrene (shown below the bottle) to the poly cement.
This article shows how to make a useful product that both glues and fills gaps at the same time.
Making Poly-Goop
Making poly-goop is very easy. Take a half-used bottle of liquid polystyrene cement and add to it small chips of styrene cut from waste sprue.
Here it is possible to see the 'gloopy' consistency of the poly goop.
Polystyrene cement works by dissolving the surface of the styrene. The styrene chips added to the liquid cement will gradually dissolve to make a thick goop. How long it will take to dissolve depends on the strength of the poly cement, but it may be a few days, or a couple of weeks. The thickness of the goop depends on how many chips have been added.
The goop can be made thicker by adding more styrene chips or thinned by adding more liquid poly cement. The eventual colour of the poly goop will depend on the colour of the styrene chips added.
Using Poly-Goop
Poly goop is useful in similar situations to gap filling superglue. Because it is polystyrene cement, it will glue styrene parts together, but because it has a high content of styrene and is gloopy it will also fill gaps.
Originally, these hand rails were too short and did not meet the side of the tank turret. Poly goop applied with a small brush was used to bridge the gap and create a weld bead around the end of each railing.
Although it will dissolve plastic, it will not be so aggressive as pure 'thick' polystyrene cement. If traditional polystyrene cement was used for gap filling, it would undoubtedly dissolve the plastic around it.
Poly goop is useful for creating weld beads around parts such as where hand rails are welded on to the side of vehicles. The best way to apply poly-goop is on the tip of a small paint brush. If you keep a separate paint brush for applying liquid cement then the same one can be used for your poly-goop. Just make sure that you wipe the brush on paper towel and 'rinse' it in pure liquid cement after using it to apply poly-goop.
Poly-goop has many uses. It is good as a gap filler and for making weld beads. The main disadvantages are that it takes a long time to set and it needs to be used with care because even though it is safer to use that pure polystyrene cement, using too much will damage the model.
The two halves of this alien figure tail have a complex ridge and unfortunately the seam would be obvious if nothing is done about it. Using a conventional filler would be very time consuming. Poly goop is being carefully brushed over the seam and the edges feathered with neat liquid cement. This will hide the seam without the need for any further sanding.
Here poly-goop is being used to soften the edge of the alien's arm where it meets the shoulder. The poly-goop naturally settles in the seam and smooths itself out making further sanding or filling unnecessary.
This hatch has a bad sink hole that was difficult to get at and it would have been difficult to sand any filler. Poly goop filled the hole nicely and using liquid cement the edges were feathered so no sanding was needed.
~~ Last updated July 13, 2009 by Peter Hall. ~~