For anyone getting started in the hobby of building plastic miniatures you need three things: clippers, knife, and plastic glue. These things are so basic to our hobby that many of use still use the same tools and glue that we started with, often times the Games Workshop glue for those that started with their models.

For me, I started this hobby in the model airplane world which is ruled by Testors, well at least at the big box stores in the US. Those of you who followed a similar path probably remember the tubes of doom that Testors sold as their plastic glue, think of those tiny tubes of super glue, but much bigger, and much messier.

Fortunately at some point I bought the Model Master line of plastic glue instead that came in a nice applicator bottle and a metal tip. This changed everything. The tiny metal tip allowed precises control of where the glue would go, and since it wasn’t in a crinkly, old tube, it is also very easy to control how much glue is applied.

I personally haven’t used the GW glue much except for a few in-store repairs, but I know the older bottles were awful in applying anything but a blob of mess.

I did find out you have to be careful in buying Testors’ glue, as they have an identical looking package but with a plastic tip, which is plain ridiculous. To be sure, look for those metal skewers inside the package, which are part of the magic. If the tip is ever clogged with dried glue, those fit nicely into it and can push that gunk out of the way. Ever try that with a plastic tipped bottle?

Over the last 7 or so years of building GW models, I have bought only three of these plastic glue containers, it goes that far. That’s an army of Lizardmen, Dark Elves, Traitor Guard, Iron Warriors, Baneblade, Orks, Stompa, Knight Titan, Tyranids, and a few dozen terrain pieces with just three bottles of plastic glue (and a ton of super glue for all those metal/resin joins). Not too bad for a $8 bottle you can  grab it on Amazon.

So if you are tired of dealing with crinkly tubes, or hard to control plastic tips, do you and your little grey men a favor and upgrade!

• Joe B.