glue

[ylee1026]

What is the best brand for glue and what type?

[Unome]

Cyanoacrylate glue is the best type for almost all applications in the SO structure events. I have heard that thin CA is more effective, but medium viscosity is much easier to work with.

Edit: refer to the post below for some more specifics

[windu34]

Bob Smith Industries CA. Blue and Purple are both good, but for balsa events, use blue (less viscous)

[ylee1026]

Thank you so much! Loving this Community!

[retired1]

A lot of glue choice is personal preferences. I like 50/50 Duco on both sides of the joint followed by a thin coat of full strength on one piece. It is strong and a tiny bit less weight. The negative is the drying time.
A long time ago one of the students used a regular strength CA glue. I told him that it was not a great choice as I think that it was thicker back then. At regional his tower broke because a couple of joints peeled back 1 or 2 layers of growth rings. They were very tightly stuck on the other piece. The solution was I mixed regular CA with thin CA which would penetrate deeper.
One solution to the use of thin is to put a small drop of it on aluminum foil and then dip or rub one of the sticks in the drop. No runs and good penetration.. If you use a puddle vs a drop, it will go bad in a few minutes and not work as well.

Generic CA often times has too much variability from one lot to another, so use good stuff.

In model airplanes there is a general consensus that the use of accelerator will slightly reduce the strength of the joint. But there are places where that is not important and it sure speeds things up.