It’s Electrifying. . . .Liquifying that is

With the use of Liquified Styrene gaining on me here is a short update on that

Some great friends here on iModeler have been using Liquified Styrene (or LqS for short) for some time, and I decided to give it a go too.

I wanted to make a brew that was a different color than the one my kits usually are in order to be able to see it after adjustments. First you take a small container – a pesto glass was perfect for my use. I had made a batch, but find it is a bit on the thin side, so more sprue was added

It looks like a mess, but not to worry

It will all be nice and liquid in a few hours or so.

If you are dissatisfied with the thickness, just add more sprue or glue.

The basic ingredients are – in my brew – Humbrol Liquid poly (long out of production – Tamiya Thin will do as well I think) and remains from a build kit. I used the sand-colored trees from a Tamiys Spitfire. I had thought of using either White or Yellow sprue, but ended with this as it would be too stark a contrast with the other two. Should I ever need to use it on a white plane it can easily be brewed up in any color you have lying around.

Now, please add your comments on how you make yours!

Now, we are all aware of the dangers of this and that, but do take care with homemade stuff

@lgardner
@kalamazoo
@fiveten
@klavs1972
@luftwaffe-birdman

I use a half jar of Tamiya extra thin then add Eduard or Tamiya sprue. I've gone away from using though as it can take some time to go off. A mix of CA and talc is what I'm using now. The talc prevents it from setting like concrete and gives it some ability to take a scriber.

@lgardner

@kalamazoo

@fiveten

@klavs1972

@luftwaffe-birdman

@airbum

Just wanted to let you all know that this type of putty is also available commercially from Gunze/Mr Hobby as Mr Dissolved Putty. A 40 ml bottle costs about $5 online.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

Erik, @airbum

I had an "old" bottle of Tamiya extra thin glue. It was getting very old, and it had started to get a little cloudy looking. This cloudy appearance was most likely due to the brush contacting plastic parts as the glue was applied.

My old bottle of Tamiya Thin was half full. So I snipped some Revell "Gray" plastic trees into a bunch of tiny plastic parts, then dumped these little plastic parts in the half full Tamiya glue bottle, and let them sit for several days. During this "sitting" time, I would occasionally open the bottle and stir it up, using a wooden stir stick, better mixing the plastic chips into the glue.

After several days I had a half full bottle of Liquefied Styrene. My first batch was too thin, and it had the tendency to run if you were not careful with the application. So I added some more plastic scraps, and I was very happy with the final mix. I used gray plastic for my home made brew, as I thought it would blend in better once things were shaped with a file and then sanded smooth. I did this for painting reasons, since I don't usually apply a primer paint base. Since I'm usually painting with enamels, they bite into the plastic better and allows me to do this. If I have a trouble area, I occasionally will spray some primer to see how it looks in this location only. If I am spraying an acrylic paint, then spraying a primer base is a must. If you don't do this "primer" step when using acrylics, you will have paint that will flake off... and this always happens to me just before I'm ready to apply the decals !

If it were not for our friend Spiros, I wouldn't have known about using this stuff. I'm hooked on it, and have been using this mixture since then for filler material. The only down side to using it, is the extended waiting time for it to cure. The video he posted got me thinking about using this stuff.

After letting this Liquefied Styrene set up for several days, (sometimes up to a week later), I use several types of differently shaped hobby files to shape the dried plastic "blob" into something that resembles the area I wish to fill in. Once it is "close enough", I do the final shaping using progressively finer grit sandpaper, until the repair is invisible.

You can treat this liquefied styrene filler the same as you do the surrounding plastic. It will not chip out when you are re scribing panel lines, or when you are adding rivets. This is the pitfall of using a regular type filler. I have had this problem happen to me before when I used other fillers.

I have tried using "Thick" CA glue, but ended up sanding away more of the surrounding plastic, and was left with the CA glue still largely intact. The CA is almost always harder that the plastic material, so it will sand off at a slower rate than the plastic it is being used on as a filler.

Some people have great results using CA glue... I'm just not one of them.

This is why I am now using the liquefied styrene exclusively on all of my builds. I use the extended drying times to work on something else. This is why it is good for me to have multiple projects going on at the same time. Here's my first time using this stuff. This is my 1/32 Hasegawa Ki-44.

Thanks again Spiros ! @fiveten

You're the best... 🙂

It's just as easy and cheaper to do this with good old hardware store MEK rather than just Tamiya extra thin or another product.

@airbum and @gblair, Thanks for the information and the updates. I think I will give this a try. I have often laid in a piece of styrene rod and glued it into seams and sanded them down. This LqS may be a nice additional tool to filling gaps and steps.

MEK is Methyl Ethyl Ketone, my friend @airbum!

Spiros (@fiveten), Dion (@dion-dunn)
Thanks - I'll have to remember that next time I go shopping!

Louis (@lgardner)
ref the "Mr Putty" experience, could that be down to the fast drying time, the homebrewed LqS being slow indicating it will make a better bond.