Glue for Revells 2 piece tires?

[MPi-KM]

Is there a glue made that holds the old Revell 2 piece tires together?

[SfanGoch]

NO. The polymer used is resistant to all knows solvents. Your only options are the following:

• Fastening
• Infrared welding
• Laser welding
• Ultrasonic welding
• Heat sealing
• Heat fusion

Think I'm kidding? Look up polyethylene/polypropylene.

[Muncie]

Joe's correct, no known solvents to weld those tires together...

This has worked - Shoo Goo (it's an adhesive for repairing shoes) works but it's a time intensive process waiting for it to dry several times.  It sticks to the surface (what do they call that?) instead of softening the plastic to weld the part together.  I run a bead at the seam to hold the tire halves together, let it dry. A single bead at the seam isn't very durable.  Next step is to  partially fill the tire about half way up the sidewall, let it dry with the tire vertical. Rotate, repeat, rotate, repeat... until it's glued all around. Let it dry.  Shoo Goo gets stronger the longer it dries - I'm talking three or four weeks to get to full strenghth.  Try to keep it off the tread, but any excess can be sanded to smooth the seam.

[jeffdeoranut]

the only kit I still have that built with the halved slicks is the troublemaker funny car...I used superglue  on them about 20 years ago and they are still ok, however this does entail a little filling and sanding then painting the tread area.  also if you google glue for plastic gas tanks you will find some products that will work also but in my experience with them some worked and some did not.  the only one that worked great was very expensive-sadly I don't remember the name-about 12 bucks for a tiny bottle... about 60 for enough to repair a gas tank...I found it on ebay and I THINK its also available through napa.  you can also use aftermarket tires which will look much better.NOT TO DISPUTE OTHER POSTERS-THIS IS JUST MY EXPERIENCES.

Edited August 30, 2018 by jeffdeoranut

[Mark]

The old, greasy feeling Revell two-piece tires can't be glued, but the more recent/softer ones can.  Often the slick halves are distorted though, so you might need two sets of tires to mix/match the halves in order to get one good set.  If the tires in question are the Revell dragster/funny car units, Revell did retool those as one-piece awhile back.  I've purchased those separately, both in Stevens International packaging and from Spotlight Hobbies (ex-Hobby Heaven).

[Art Anderson]

On 8/30/2018 at 8:53 AM, Mark said:

The old, greasy feeling Revell two-piece tires can't be glued, but the more recent/softer ones can.  Often the slick halves are distorted though, so you might need two sets of tires to mix/match the halves in order to get one good set.  If the tires in question are the Revell dragster/funny car units, Revell did retool those as one-piece awhile back.  I've purchased those separately, both in Stevens International packaging and from Spotlight Hobbies (ex-Hobby Heaven).

Those Revell (and other manufacturers)  2-pc tires were molded in polyethylene plastic, in the late 70's,  when there was a massive "cancer scare" over polyvinyl chloride (PVC)--due to the outgassing that happened during it's being melted under heat for injection molding (I was the Personnel Manager at an Essex Group Wire Assembly Plant here in Lafayette IN, responsible for OSHA compliance back then--it was a HUGE issue for us as well, given that we were molding thousands of soft PVC plugs onto the ends of wires for producing the largest automotive wiring harnesses, for the massively large 70's Lincoln Continental MK-IV and MK-V, along with their companion Ford Thunderbirds.  Fortunately, DuPont (and other companies) were able to come up with processes that greatly reduced that gas from being an issue, which also almost eliminated the often oily BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH that would leach out of such molded PVC items.

The most visible benefit?   It's been decades since we've had to put up with "tire burns" on the polystyrene plastic parts in our model kits, along with the same reaction to tires eating into the wheel rims of our builds!

Art

[Tom Geiger]

I just avoid them by using better one piece tires from my parts kits.