So this is a topic I’ve been meaning to bring up for quite sometime now, though never had the motivation to do so until now.
What are people’s thoughts on the use super glue to add friction? For example with the gearboxes of G2, to have enough friction you’d typically have to add a bunch of those tiny gears just to get enough friction to hold up weapons such as Gali’s Trident/Spear? Sometimes you could get it to hold up without extra gears, but it was a finicky thing. I know oftentimes I’d have this great idea for a moc, that uses gears, but ultimately I’d find myself having to modify it greatly because I’d be force to add more gears for friction or suffer wobbly arms which suck for displaying, which is the main reason I build mocs.
However I eventually found adding just a very, very light coating of super glue to gears, or even axles, added enough friction that extra gears were not needed. The super glue was thin enough that it did not prevent the piece from being unusable for other purposes, and typically the super glue dried clear so you wouldn’t even know it was on the piece unless you looked at it closely. This same process works on many other pieces, ball sockets for legs and limbs, loose pins, even system parts.
Of course purists would see this as modifying a piece, but I’m curious what most’s opinion on this is. Is it an abomination and act of evil, or is it a solution to a very minor issue? Has anyone else used this method in lieu of more pieces for friction? Just honestly curious.
Also sorry to moderation if this is not in the right category. Tried looking over the categories to see where such a topic would fit, but given it’s not about a moc itself, didn’t feel it made sense to go in the creative works section.
I’d suggest floor polish instead, it’s generally the better alternative. It does have to be a certain type of floor polish though, can’t remember off the top of my head, but I’m sure someone knows what I’m talking about.
Super glue has a higher chance of braking the piece, since you are stressing the connection with additional layer.
Its good for glueing parts that wont be intented to ever move, but incorporating it in moving friction parts, not the best choice. Never use it on a socket connector that cracked, wont actually hold for very long and it might get glue resedue all over the ball connection, which leads to brakeage.
Its good for glueing those peskiy one size tiles into peg holes which often than not want to easily come off just with a slightly stronger tap near the connection area.
Nail polish for instance has similar glue properties, though its much weaker.
My solution depends on whether or not you change the build of your sets, and also it doesn’t work for Tahu, Gali, Skull Basher, and Skull Slicer (Gonna need to add some extra gears there). I don’t know about the beasts, I never bought them.
If you don’t change the builds of your sets: I would suggest not putting super glue on the sets, maybe instead put something that can be removed (Like model tack, or Elmer’s School glue)
If you do change the build of your sets, follow the instructions I put into the YouTube video. You also will need 3 extraneous pieces.
In general super glue or any other material that you’re laying into the socket will just stress the piece further. Although if you’re just posing it one time and not moving it at all, super glue might work long term, or at least the piece will last a bit longer.
