Gluing Joints, Laps, Acetone?

From my experience with plastic models (80% positive it's ABS) the glue was an acetone based glue. This does melt the plastic together and makes a very strong bond. When put under stress, my models broke at the plastic bulk before they broke at the bond site.

if you don't want to mix your own glue, might I suggest something such as Testor's liquid cement (It's what I've used for ABS, when I ran out of Games Workshop glue).

For gluing ABS, I've had the best results just using the ABS cement meant for DWV pipe at the hardware store.  It's thick and fills gaps handily, and makes really solid joints, unsurprising, given what it's used for.  I've only seen it in black, however.  My guess is that it's also abs dissolved in acetone, but you can't beat the convenience of it being pre-made.

For other colors, I guess you still have to make your own.  For this here is a thread on the benheck forums with some pics:

http://forums.benheck.com/viewtopic.php … mp;t=33302

Lastly, @Schieggster, I believe plastic models are typically polystyrene, but yes, Testors does specifically say their cement is good for ABS:

http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/tes/tes3502.htm

Making the glue by mixing ABS and Acetone is simple and very easy to use.  I just put some scraps of the color I was using into an old Tupperware container poured a little acetone in and put the lid on.  In not much time it had dissolved the ABS and I was gluing away.  I just wiped it on with a Q-tip.

Here is what I made just to print something large and see how the glue worked.  It kinda defeats the purpose of having a Raspberry Pi as the case is 10 times the size of the actual computer but I needed to print something large and after SI saw this on Thingiverse I had to give it a try.  I'll eventually smooth out the whole thing with Acetone and maybe paint it as you can see some of the joint lines.

Updated information on the Plastruct ABS cement:

I ran out and read the side of the label (I know a shock actually reading infromation on the product) Anyway the plastruct cemet is MEK (Methyl Ethyl Keytone) which at my local hardware store is $22 for a us quart (32 Oz). Plastructs is $5.00 for 4 oz. A large savings and I can reuse my old plastruct jar to keep the small amount I need at the work bench in.

Thought it might be interesting to everyone.

Super glue is probably good because it's "Cyanoacrylic glue" and the acrylic part means the carrier solvent is probably also a solvent for ABS (acrylic butadiene-something styrene)

That said, I prefer ABS "slurry" because (A) it's cheaper (B) doesn't stick to my fingers as much (C) I don't neccesarily want a joint as strong as super glue, because having a stronger point in a piece often means a stress concentration at that point.

MEK and Acetone are both ketones. so they should both have a similar effect of melting the styrene in the ABS (acrylonytrile+butadiene+styrene)

raw acetone wicked into a tight joint will glue pieces together very well. you can mix ABS into the acetone if you need a bit thicker glue, for gap filling... but be careful as you could get too much acetone with a "gap filler" consistency glue and end up melting a hole in your model. lol! i have some babyfood jars with acetone in them that i stick scraps from prints in to dissolve till i need it. comes in handy and makes use of my scrap till someone comes up with a good way to recycle it back into filament. lol