Not to mention N-Dimethylacrylamide, tetrahydrofurfuryl acrylate and a bunch of other similarly named substances (a). I mentioned a couple of years ago here that I couldn't use superglue properly and received a number of sympathetic comments. ["I note," interjects the Rhetorical Pedant "that those comments were from pretty much the same few people who still read and comment on your blog now. Isn't that just a little bit sad for absolutely everybody concerned?"] Anyway, things haven't improved. I am using regular polystyrene cement a lot because the plastic being used by most figure manufacturers these days seems to take it OK. But when trying, for example, to bond plastic to metal the superglue comes out and things still go wrong.
Yesterday, setting up the game in the annexe, it struck me that I could perhaps do with another unit of Janissaries. I have plenty in stock (believe me I have plenty of most things in stock) and so sorted out sixteen to paint. Now the problem is that the figures available in plastic (on this occasion I am going to use these) are for a somewhat later period than I am doing. The uniform is the same, but many of them have firearms and so need converting in some way. I originally went for a 'simple' change, turning muskets into crossbows, but the results were, frankly, terrible. I'll still use them obvs, but there certainly won't be any photos of them on here. Subsequently I have decided to just cut the guns off and add pikes made from florists wire, but that, of course, requires superglue.
Or at least it did. I have, again as you already know, been ill. When I was at my poorliest I could do not much more than sit on the settee and watch television all day, thus being bombarded with adverts for lots and lots of stuff that I only vaguely knew existed before. Now I am never going to buy any sort of exercise machinery, I don't yet require a stairlift or shoes that fasten with velcro (they do look comfortable though) and, as an accountant, I'm not going to touch a funeral insurance plan with a bargepole, regardless of how many pens Michael Parkinson gives me. But I was rather taken with Lazer Bond (don't worry about the spelling - no lasers are involved), the plastic adhesive that only sets when you shine a UV light on it. And so, faced with sticking pikes onto Janissaries I have splashed out and bought some.
At this point you are no doubt waiting for me to say that I have managed to make a mess of that as well. But no. It works a treat. It's clean, simple, and quick. It's a bit like me in fact, except perhaps for the quick bit. Really, it's fine. What it isn't, is cheap. I paid £9.99 for 4 ml. Of course I have no idea how long it will last, or how many little plastic chaps it will stick together, so it may be even worse value for money than that suggests. If I had to guess the order of magnitude, based on remarkably little evidence, I would go for 100 rather than 1,000. But it works. Just maybe one of those exercise machines really would give me a six-pack without any effort on my part.
(a) How do I know this? I read a book: 'All About Glue'. I couldn't put it down.
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