Thin Glue – The One to get

When it comes to clean work, first thing you need to have is thin glue. And not just thin, it has to be the thinnest one you can find out there. There is options, but I will mention the best two of them you can get. One is
Tamiya green cap – Extra Thin Cement, and Gunze-Sangyo Mr. Cement S. I have tried others, and I cannot tell a single nice word about them, except maybe for Revell Contacta – the one with the needle, which is close like an idea to those two, but not even the half-way as a performance.

Very thin and fast glue. The Best out there IMHO

So in this case we will stay with Japanese productions.
As everything that comes from Japan, they are very very high quality products. Japanese are very serious and devoted people, and you can count that you will have only good stuff from them. This comes for their glue products too.
They are mostly on the same principle, but work a bit differently.
First Tamiya. My favorite.
It comes in a small jar, very clear and thin liquid. The green cap that stands out immediately have a small and very sharp brush with which you suppose to apply it. It works like this:
presumably you are glueing Tamiya model kit. They fit perfectly, and rarely you will find any gaps. So attach parts one to another, and touch the seam where both one connect with each other. The glue on the brush is thin, and goes in very fast, using capillary action to spread itself. This works almost every single time. Very easy. In a moment, it starts melting plastic, and in a couple of minutes it has done its magic. You have your two parts glued. Not only that, but it makes it so hard, that after waiting an hour for curing, you have almost monolith part.
Considering that you have done your job pre-assembling the model, trying out it fit and fixing where it is needed, you are hassle free from that point on. Just have to go over the connecting parts with that tiny brush and wait for 40-50 minutes so to be sure that it is done.

Mr.Cement S – thin and not so fast

If you accidently spill some, it vaporates so fast, that if you blow on it you won’t even mention that it was there after priming.
The other thing that it does very well is melting the powder left from sanding or some leftovers from cutting the plastic. Of course if they are not too big. That helps a lot, even though the glue you are not suppose to use your glue as a fixer.
Mr.Cement S works just the same way. I am not gonna mention the similarities, since they are so many. The differences however are a few, but you need to know them in order to pick the best glue for yourself.

Mr.Cement works slowly. And that isn’t necesseraly a bad thing – just the opposite. Many people do re-adjustments after the glue starts to cure. Myself included. And Mr.Cement gives you that time. While Tamiya is cured and started to make the plastic gummy, Mr.Cement has just started its job.
In the same time you need to know, that starting slowly, well – finishing slowly. And once you fixed the parts and placed the thin cement over them, you better not mess with them for a while. Especially when using Gunze-Sangyo. In other case you might get in some sort of a mess, since it melts the plastic so hard, that you can make it look like a putty if squeezed inproprely the parts attached with glue.
Otherwise, everything is the same. I would give a curing time hour, hour-and-a-half for Mr.Cement, but it still the same end result. Actually, my best models were glued with Mr.Cement. I haven’t got any spare Tamiya Extra thin in stash at that time. And again – it does not make big difference.
Maybe the brush of the Cement S is a bit thicker and bigger, which eventually will leave a bit more glue over the parts. That will make it more uneconomical, but that is just in theory. As I’ve said – they both work pretty well.

Regular Mr. Cement /not an S/ and…

Tamiya Limonene. Both great for track links.

So if you wanna do serious business, you gotta consider those two cements.
They are not so good for tracks, where its better to use Tamiya Limonene or regular Mr.Cement, which are thicker and allow further movement of the glued parts. Or in that matter for bigger gaps or inside /non-visible/ attachments. Hull, innter parts and so on. They don’t work on resin or Photo-Etch parts too.
But again, for clean and neat work with fine models, and especially if you need your model to look like a winner, you need to use those two. They do the job pretty quick, and most important – clean and without damage!
Strongly recommended for every modeler out there!