GLUE
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This article is going to be ALL ABOUT GLUE!
The best way to do it imo is to show you how it works and try to tear it apart after they're done drying. It's going to be on the same material, with the same shape, which makes this 'experiment' much more accurate!
I waited about 10 hours for the glues to dry before I start ripping them apart. I think most glue recommendation is about at least 12 hours or 24 hours...but I thought 10 could be enough. Hence results might vary if you wait a but longer (ain't nobody got time for that though 😆) I'll list out the pros and cons too in my opinion for the glues.
Please read before proceeding:
This article by @handxmade is free for personal use ONLY and any reproduction is prohibited.
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UPDATE: Test for glues for more than 24 hours is up! In fact, I waited for 3 days. Finally found some time to redo the test and made sure to wait more than the recommended timing! I’ll label the GIFs accordingly.
Do note that for glues, it's mostly for:
1. Sticking baked polymer clay to baked polymer clay.
If you're gonna stick raw to raw/raw to baked clay, I recommend just using liquid clay!
2. Sticking any other materials to baked polymer clay.
Like magnets, threads, earring backings etc.
My tests is only for baked polymer clay on baked polymer clay, but I think it would work for situation 2 too, don't think it really matters, as polymer clay is still the main material.
I'll start with the glues that I don't really recommend, so if you want to see what I DO recommend, just scroll to the bottom! 😊
GOOEY ALL PURPOSE GLUE
UHU glue is one of the most comment glue that people use for baked polymer clay. Most of the time....it's for projects that you're NOT going to sell/just a temporary fix.
One of the PROS of UHU glue is that it's kinda gooey, and you can adjust the placement of the item even after you put it on so it's cool to make mistakes here!
But because of this, it does take quite a bit to dry.
When it's semi-dried, you can actually use a tweezer to remove the excess glue, which makes the gluing process looks quite clean!
I have two experiment for all the glue, and for the first one, I only glue half of it, so I can see if it's easy to pry it out, hence it's just purely the strength of the glue. For the second one, I glue the whole thing which would make it a lot tougher to pry out 😊
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
Here's why I don't really recommend it. As you can see, it took me no effort at all to remove the two pieces, and the glue itself can be pried off easily from the clay! It doesn't really BOND with the clay and makes it very easy to be removed.
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
Even the 2nd experiment failed miserably. Yes it did take me a little bit more effort but there wasn't much resistance at all haha.
E6000 is actually one of the glues that was highly recommended for polymer clay, and honestly, I believed in it until one day @msparkpark told me it was really easy to remove it and I only realised that it really was basically UHU glue after I tried it out. It was quite disappointing.
Maybe it would have done better if I waited for 24 hours or so, but what @msparkpark told me was her charm HAD BEEN there for quite some time and it was easy to remove it ☹️
Here's how the texture is like! Maybe slightly more easier to control than UHU glue.
Still adjustable etc after gluing, so same rules from UHU glue applies to E6000! You can still adjust if you need to after gluing.
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
SO EFFORTLESS HAHAHA.
I do think it's a little bit better than UHU glue but mannnnnnn. I think it does bond with the clay itself a little, but really not enough to make it stick well. After waiting more than the recommended time (24 hours), it does stick a lot better, but the situation is the same as UHU glue - the glue itself peels off in one piece and doesn’t bond the clay together very well.
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
Same goes here. Trust me, these little pieces were really hard to bend without losing control of it, and the fact that it was so easily removed really says something.
If you like this kind of glue, I would recommend E6000 over UHU though! There must be a reason why some people rave about it and it DOES sticks a littttttle bit better than UHU glue.
DAISO RESIN GLUE
Resin glue!
I've been using resin glue for the longest time and honestly, I believed in it and was so sure that my pieces were stuck on well.
CAN'T BELIEVE HOW WRONG I WAS?!?!
How resin glue works is that you have two parts, A and B. One of them is basically the hardener, which dries the resin up. You put out equal amounts of it, and mix those two equal parts together.
It works like epoxy resin, but they call this a glue so I'm assuming it's a bit better to use it as a glue haha.
I use a toothpick to apply most glue, especially resin glue since I have to mix them anyway! It's just much more convenient and if I forgot about it and left it on the paper I can just throw it away, instead of cleaning my tools haha.
Resin glue takes the LONGEST to dry out of the lot, and I honestly didn't mind especially if it was going to bond the pieces together well. 24 hours is the recommended waiting time, like normal epoxy resin!
Since it takes some time to dry, you can always adjust it if needed. 😊
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
After waiting for the recommended timing, the resin glue is definitely a lot stronger. As you can see, I basically broke the clay to try to pry the two pieces away from each other. I may be due to the fact that I’ve put on a thicker layer of resin glue for the 2nd test, but at least the glue doesn’t come off in one piece like the UHU/E6000 glue.
After 10 hours
The piece that was glued completely did a lot better though, as you can see! I couldn't take it out at all and I was really using a lot of strength!
This GIF didn't show it breaking off but after I stopped recording I tried it again and it came off hahahahaha.
I think it could be the brand of the resin glue too? This was a gift from @msparkpark so I can try it out, and I think it was bought from Daiso! Maybe the higher grade ones do a lot better.
I might give resin glue another chance and one day buy a better quality kind, because it IS nice to be able to move things around before it dries completely!
For resin glue though, you'd have to be careful because it does have a sort of tint to it, and if you're gluing white pieces together it might be reaaaally obvious!
Seeing how the glue takes so much effort to prepare, and let dry, yet it's so easily break, I don't think I'll use them to stick my magnets (which I've been doing anymore) hahaha.
ARALDITE RESIN GLUE
I wanted to try another resin glue, so I was curious how it would fare. I bought these from Japan Home, a place where they sell various common household products. These places are usually a littleeeee bit iffy, so I’m a little bit worried that these are “fake”? But they still fared pretty well, and I really don’t have trustable hardware stores around here…
As usual, resin glue has 2 parts, so here I am squeezing out equal amounts.
I also realise that mixing resin glue on masking tape is one of the least messy method as I can just tear the masking tape after the resin glue is dried! It’s really efficient and saved me a lot of time haha.
Also, note how Araldite glue doesn’t have much of a tint like Daiso resin glue after it’s dried! So that’s something you can keep in mind especially if you need to glue white things together.
This Araldite resin glue also comes with a plastic spoon, and the big surface area makes mixing the resin fuss free too.
And I was surprised that the resin glue was really easy to peel off after it’s dried! 😍 I don’t have to keep throwing away toothpick after using them anymore hahaha.
After 36 hours
However…..I was really surprised that the glue was so easy to peel off after drying 😭 It doesn’t bond with the clay as good as I thought, and I couldn’t believe it fared worse than $2 daiso resin glue….?
Like I said, maybeeeeeeee these were “fake” ones and hence this sort of result, but I was still a little disappointed.
After 36 hours
It doesn’t come out THAT easily still, as you can see here I was really trying to take it out. But yeah, not that good at bonding clay to clay together. 🤔 I’ll still use resin glue over liquid clay/UHU/E6000 for polymer clay to other materials though, it’s just a lot more trustworthy compared to those.
LIQUID CLAY
Liquid clay can be used as a glue too! It's essentially polymer clay in liquid form, and so, it bonds quite well with polymer clay!
It really depends on what kind of thing you stick it with though. I don't recommend gluing other stuff like earring backings with it because it's still polymer clay and you CAN break it if you want to/if it isn't baked properly.
One good thing about liquid clay is that it doesn't dry AT ALL until you leave it to bake! After baking, you can know for sure it's dry too, and that takes like 1 hour maximum? 😊 (Not 24 hours geez)
Being able to adjust it is important especially when you need the pieces to join seamlessly! Example if it's a piece that broke off etc.
I put a bit too much liquid clay and it kinda went into the whole piece, so it was hard to find an opening haha.
The liquid clay does bond well as you can see!! I use liquid clay whenever I put raw pieces together so it's nice to know that it works well hahahaha.
Of course since I'm at it I should try Sculpey liquid clay, which is the liquid clay I use the most 😊
Sculpey liquid clay is white, but it turns translucent after baking! It IS more obvious after baking than FIMO though so do take note!
Sculpey liquid clay is also a little bit thicker than FIMO, so it's a little bit easier to control it imo!
I am assuming that since both are liquid clay, the results will be similar. Here's how the liquid clay bonds with the polymer clay! It really shows how it seeps into the clay.
It was really tough to break this and I actually gave up hahaa it was quite painful 🤣
Again, I only recommend liquid polymer clay for baked polymer clay pieces! I think putting liquid clay on other materials is a whole new level since you'd have think about whether the material can be baked in the oven, and how if the material isn't as flexible it MIGHT break the liquid clay bond easily. So I myself would use liquid clay strictly for polymer clay only 😊
SUPERGLUE
I think people give too little credit to superglue for polymer clay. IT WORKS LIKE A CHARM?!!?
it does have quite a bit of cons like how superglue dries up so quick that you don't really have enough time to adjust the pieces at all, and how some brands leave a white residue after it's dry when you try to wipe it off.
Look at how fast it dried up!! 😱😅 I couldn't even turn it and it got stuck like this HAHAHAHA. I'll definitely use liquid clay/resin glue if I need to fix polymer clay pieces and NOT superglue hahaa.
But this would be AMAZING to glue like, earring backings or even magnets! 😍
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
See what I mean? hahaha. If you try to pry it out the clay pieces breaks off instead lolol
After 10 hours
After 36 hours
This hurt me so much hahahaha IT BONDS VERY WELL.
Another cons of superglue is that the bottle themselves DRIES UP when you don't close it quick enough, or even just storing it wrongly. For me, I put my super glue in zip lock bags so it extends the life of an opened superglue a lot better 🤣
Also, sometimes when the glue is at the tip of the applicator, it dries up THERE too and you can't get anything out.....One tip from a hobby shop owner is to just trim the tip haha, but I find that squeezing the tube in the opposite way you squeezed previously helps to get the glue BACK inside the tube itself, and hence NOT BLOCKING the tip of the applicator. You will have less risk of gluing the cap on the glue's applicator too ahaha 👍🏻
THE GLUE I'M GOING TO USE ALL THE TIME
SCOTCH SUPER GLUE
I was actually out of super glue that day, and was out to find more when I saw these Scotch superglues! There were this NO RUN GEL written on it and I was pretty amused by it. You mean it's superglue but it's not really liquid SO IT DOESN'T GO ALL OVER THE PLACE??
I HAD TO BUY IT TO TRY.
The bottle itself was really interesting! Only the middle portion squeezes and even so, it was relatively easy to control the amount of glue I wanted. I think they got some engineering right for super glue because I realised that the tip doesn't get blocked at all? The cover also doesn't touch the tip so it wasn't going to stick on the cap hahaa. I didn't even put them in a ziplock bag and had no problems with them so far! GOOD PACKAGING 👍🏻
Here's the liquid one, which is basically like all the other super glue, just glue and place it on!
It really dries very fast though, as usual 😶
No chance of adjusting at all hahahahahahahaha
After 10 hours
But look at how good it bonds with polymer clay! I was so happy when I saw this hahaha.
Again this hurt me so I stopped hahaa. The glue does dry a but glossy, but there's no white residue so that's a good start!
Now's the test for the no run gel. Is it really like superglue??? Will it stick as well??
As you can see, it's really like jelly and yep, no running at all hurhur.
AND I ALSO CAN'T ADJUST ANYTHING AT ALL WITH THIS NO RUN GEL it's really like superglue I am so amazed hahaha
After 10 hours
And here's similar results to all the superglues 🤣
After 10 hours
SO GOOD
The no run gel does make it so much easier to control, and I didn't get a lot of it on my finger etc. Makes it easier to wipe the excess off, but it still does "stain" the clay and the glossy glue stain is still there when it dries!
I did try to clean it off with my to-go nail polish remover, and it does go away. But not as much as I'd like. I'm sure I CAN make it go away altogether, but black polymer clay doesn't go that well with the remover hahaa. It works though, so that's all it matters! Just don't put SO MUCH GLUE like I did la hahhahaa.
I used the no run gel for my Mini Christmas Ornaments and I was so happy about it because it sticks so well AND dries so fast AND THE GLUE STAY WHERE I WANT IT TO!!! I love it so much 😍✨
Be aware that you should NEVER use superglue to close something in an enclosed space (eg. gluing a glass globe cover on a glass globe to close it) - the superglue will cause a reaction and there will be a layer of white “powdery-like” stuff on your creation. You CAN wash it off but better to be safe and sorry. Use resin glue instead!
Alright! Hope this long post filled with GIFS does show you the different types of glues I have and how I use them (or not use them at all haha) I'm glad I found the Scotch Superglue and can share them with you because it really is the best find of the month! ♥️
Let me know if any information is wrong, or if you have different results with the glue! Maybe time/humidity does make a difference, and it'd be interesting to know your experiment! 😊