Hobby Cheating 221 - How to Create a Gap Filling Slurry

In this Hobby Cheating Tutorial, I take you through a quick method of making an awesome gap filling slurry out of old sprues and plastic glue. Hope you enjoy.

Twitter: @warhammerweekly
Instagram: VincentVenturella

[iceaxeminiatures]

I've been using sprue goo for a while; it worked really well on my warscryer citadel. A couple suggestions though:

1. Why fuss over finding the right bottle and cap to use, when you can just drop the sprue into a half-empty bottle of Tamiya Extra Thin? It's designed to hold plastic cement, so there should be no worries about it melting the cap or anything like that, plus it comes with a built in applicator in the cap.
2. I'd also suggest throwing in a bit of coloured sprue from a Gundam model if you have it; this adds a little colour to your slurry which makes it easier to see what's slurry and what's plastic when you are filing and sanding it back down.

[RowanPartridge]

60 years modelling and a no-seams fanatic, and I never knew this trick! Thank you, V.

[vitaemecha]

I just got back into the hobby after about 15 years off due to family commitments, largely due to finding your channel. I have been binging your videos whilst 'working from home'. I have learned more in the last 2 weeks than I did in about 10 years painting when I was younger. Thanks a lot!

[willmyers]

Brother, I just love it. The idea, tips, warnings, and foremost presentation. Comedy is pretty solid too. You’re just a natural. This o’house of the hobby world.
Thanks for help ✌🏼

[lunahula]

So you shouldn't have to worry about plastics around the Tamiya Thin or Acetone if they are urethane based. It's why the Tamiya thin cap is plastic and the little plastic brush inside of it don't melt. Same for acetone bottles that are plastic.


I typically have 3 Bottles of Tamiya Thin - 1. Clean Bottle for adhesive use 2. Dirty bottle with some plastic in, but not much that I use for smoothing down irredularities in plastic caused by scraping or sanding on areas too small to sand and polish properly. 3. A Bottle as you see here that is basically a liquid plastic filler.


Because Tamiya thin is primarily just acetone with like some malic acid in it that gives it that familiar sweet smell. You can thin your bottle of plastic slurry with more tamiya thin or acetone if you feel it is getting too thick or you have left it open to work on something for too long and it is drying out.

[dmssp]

what is the "life expectancy" of the slurry inside the glass jar with the lid on? for how long is it usable in different sessions ?
Great video as usual

[NarcolepticLTD]

Liquid Mess! My favorite gap filler - glad you finally got around to making a video on this stuff :) I usually use scrap plasticard for this, but I like to have the difference in color to show the material I added when sanding/filing.

[jesusbuddhaman]

@Vince - I use butyl acetate and acetone in a 50-50 mix to make my plastic cement. It's the same formula as Tamiya extra thin. I followed your advice and made my sprue goo using this mix.

[aerlands]

After hearing about Tom's conversion to sprue goo on Warhammer Weekly, I realized it was time for me to get over my own intertia keeping me back from finally trying it. I was also inspired by a Slaanesh-ly excessive amount of gaps and cracks in some Nurgle models I'm working on... :P Thanks for the tutorial!

[baz]

This was really useful. I did a bit of research after watching this and you should be able to use Tamiya Airbrush Cleaner as well which is probably cheaper.
The ingredients in Tamiya Extra Thin is 50% n-Butyl Acetate and 50% Acetone. (the quick setting version has different ingredients).
The ingredients in Tamiya Airbrush Cleaner is 49% n-Butyl Acetate and 51% Acetone. Other brands of airbrush thinner could have very different ingredients, like isopropyl alcohol, so be careful to check what ingredients are used.
The Citadel and Revell liquid plastic glues are 100% n-Butyl Acetate. (At least I can now make my own Tamiya extra thin as I can get hold of the Revell stuff easily and acetone is easy to get as well.)

It would be interesting to see if using either 100% acetone or 100% butyl acetate had similar effects. They are both solvents so should work to a certain extent, maybe differences in how quick the sprue dissolves, viscosity of the slurry and drying times?

[auhjo]

The background music in this video is very mystic and gave me the mental image of you making a potion with this stuff

[BSJDynasty]

I just made my first slurry and am currently waiting for it to dissolve, great tutorial as always! I thought about adding a couple of drops of ink to stain it to be able to better tell it apart from the plastic. Hoping that'll help prevent that stuff from spilling over etc.

[bfdzvalable]

The genius is in its simplicity. Way to use that big hominoid brain. Bravo!! 👏👏👏👏👏

[JHB]

Thank you for mentioning the vortex mixer! I got one awhile back and I am always trying to explain to folks what it does for us in the hobby. Now I can just direct them here!

[LoneEagle]

I know this as sprue-goo. For my own I make it in the poly bottle (a bottle I've used a lot of the glue out of - just add sprue), this has the advantage that you know the plastics involved are impervious to the poly - it also gives you the cap-brush for application.
As a note, if in your dry-fit, you see an area you're concerned about gaps or seamlines in; you can use sprue-goo as the adhesive and the excess will squige out of the joint in a very satisfying manner.

[Matcapoeira]

Hey Vince, love all the work you do with the channel. I had one point though: might be good to add a little warning to this stuff. I had a pot of sprue goo sitting around for a bit. Opened it up and the fumes that came out of it pretty much immediately gave me a raging headache and nausea. Took me a better part of the day to restabilise. Apparently the chemical process of melting those large amounts of sprue can creat some pretty harmfull vapours.

[mikebreazeale]

The old sprue glue trick...been using it for years. Love it! I use an Tamiya bottle that is almost gone and use the brush that is in the bottle. Works great! I make mine a little thicker and use it like a putty. Cool video...

[davedogge]

This plastic slurry Vs Vallejo plastic putty, which one is better ? I know that with VJ Plastic Putty you can easily wipe it away with water and a cloth if you make a mess, I don't think the homemade plastic slurry would be as forgiving though. The seal will be stronger with the homemade plastic slurry compared to vallejo's putty.

[aloysiusryan]

Totally love this. You learn something new everyday thanks

[SCA.Laurents]

Vince! You should try plast-i-weld, it's MUCH more potent than Tamiya... I don't even gap-fill regular sized models anymore because it will "bead up" the plastic when you mush two pieces together. Large models still pose problems SOMETIMES, but it will melt this slurry faster with less solvent. Give it a chance, you'll be pleasantly surprised!