DCC Impulses Column - 5
Faller Expert cement for light bars
Use gravity to your advantage
Here is a two for one: two techniques shown in one photo.
A recent installation needed a shortened light bar with the
LED (12 volt version) glued to the shortened light bar.
I use Faller
Expert cement
(see next tip
too) in cases like
this. It is methyl
chloride, like
most styrene
cements. Where
it differs is that
it includes a
large percent-
age of styrene.
This allows it to
make an optical surface. To create this assembly, I used the cut-
off wheel in my motor tool to cut the light bar and to square off
the front of the LED.
My assembly tool was gravity. I put the LED in a vise and
stood the LED lightbar on top in a pool of Faller Expert
cement. Gravity held it in place until it was dry.
Faller Expert dries more slowly than similar styrene cements
without the added styrene.
8
8: Using my vice to hold the LED while
gravity does its job.
Keep Faller Expert open
I love Faller Expert cement for
many uses. What I haven’t been
too happy with was its ten-
dency to set up in the needle
applicator and render a $5 bot-
tle of cement worthless.
I got the suggestion from another
modeler: use a 0.015" diameter
wire to keep the needle clear.
I’ve now abandoned the rub-
ber tops and make sure that I
“burp” it every time. I just use a
piece of berryllium copper wire
(Tichy Train Group) with a bit of
blue tape on the top, to prevent
stabbing myself with the wire,
as my stopper. No need for any
other stopper, unless it is going
to be unused for months. Always comes out.
Hint:
the wire is a bit longer than the needle tube, so it extends
into the bottle proper.
9: Faller Expert Cement
with a 0.015 wire stopper.
9
MRH-Jun 2013
