tjub:
So what’s the best way to glue plastic card? I used GWs plastic glue but didn’t seem to “melt” together like on plastic miniatures. Is super glue better? What do you people use? 
Nicodemus:
So what's the best way to glue plastic card? I used GWs plastic glue but didn't seem to "melt" together like on plastic miniatures. Is super glue better? What do you people use? :)I've had terrible luck with the GW product and honest cannot recommend it except as a quick in-the-moment solution to adhere plastic together. Their plastic glue becomes increasingly brittle over time and will eventually giveway. My locomotive that I had made was done with a lot of GW plastic glue and after 2 years all of the seams and joints popped apart as soon as I picked it up... and they broke along edges that I wasn't touching and weren't supporting any weight.
tjub
Dichloromethane (aka DCM, methylene chloride, solvent cement, plastic weld, etc) is very good. It's highly volatile and is metabolized in the body to carbon monoxide... that being said as long as you work with small quantities of the amounts you'd need for hobby work and don't leave it open under your nose for hours on end you'll be totally fine. It's not legal here in Canada for direct sales but respectable hobby companies will have ways of getting it (model railroad groups, etc in your area will probably know where to find it and you may be able to buy it online.
Another one is methyl ethyl ketone (aka MEK or 2-butanone). It also works well.
Any of these types of solvents will dissolve a small amount of surface plastic and allow you to weld the pieces together. After a few hours (longer if you have used a lot of solvent, the surfaces are large, and/or the weld joints are trapped inside a model and can't easily "dry") you'll have a model that's fused as if it was a single piece of plastic.
I've sworn off GW plastic glues entirely and everyone else should too :hat off The stuff that I use (DCM and MEK) is cheaper than the GW stuff, works better, you get more of it, and therefore it lasts MUCH longer too. Really no downside at all! My first time using it was like my first time using a wet palette - "Why haven't I been doing this since the beginning!?!?"
Edit: superglue (aka cyano acrylate) works great too, but only a very small amount of it adheres and bonds to the surface, then the rest of the cyano acrylate builds up on top of that adhered layer. If you're going to glue a long seam (like the edges of two pieces of plasticard) then this isn't for you. If you're going to put an am into a socket on a ball-groove on the shoulder of a model and have a big surface area then this works just as well as any of the plastic weld stuff and you'll generally break the arm at some other point before you'll break the glue joint apart. Again though, long thin edges alone won't be good for this glue unless you have some kind of internal or backing support across the seam.
~N
tjub:
Thanks for a great review Nico! :hat off
Admiral:
Very useful to know Nico! :cheers
Jasko:
Great in-depth analysis, Nico!
So I still use regular plastic glue. At some point I was also dissatisfied with GW plastic glue and now use one from UHU, works pretty well. One has to be sure that the plastic card is polystyrene, though, some plastic glues don’t work with polyethylene or polypropylene. I’ve also used super glue and even pretty basic craft glue (this thick white stuff which gets transparent after drying)