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If you’re at all interested in the miniatures and wargaming hobbies, then you’re going to need to get acquainted with glues. Almost every model requires some amount of glue, and the type of glue that you use will depend a great deal on the miniature you’re gluing. The best glue for miniatures in resin is not the best glue for miniatures in plastic, and that’s not the best glue for miniatures in metal.

We’ve written about the best paints for miniatures and the best spray primers for miniatures. Now it’s time to look at the best glues for miniatures.

So what is the best glue to use for your miniatures, and what other things do you need to know about glue?

Best Plastic Glue

The best plastic glue, which will (almost always) the best glue for Warhammer, the best glue for Kings of War, the best glue for Conquest, and the best glue for many, many other games, is Tamiya Extra Thin Cement. 

Yes, there are other glues that you can use as a plastic glue, but in my experience (and the experience of many, many other hobbyists) Tamiya Extra Thin Cement is the best bet. 

Plastic glue is different from other types of glue in that it does not merely stick two things together: it actually melts the plastic so that the two plastic pieces weld together, creating strong bonds. Superglue, as super as it is, can get brittle and break, but when plastic glue is used, the joint is as strong as any other part of the plastic. 

The fact that it melts the plastic also means that you can get plastic glue on your fingers and it will not get you sticky at all–you’ll never glue your fingers together with plastic glue like you can with super glue. It simply works by bonding plastics.

There are other types of plastic glue that are good: Revell Contacta Professional is a good plastic glue, primarily due to the size of the hole in the tip.

However, I prefer Tamiya Extra Thin Cement for gluing plastics because it doesn’t use a tip but instead has a brush. This allows for far more control. If there’s a downside to Tamiya Extra Thin Cement it’s that when the bottle gets down to about one-third full it will be almost useless–the brush doesn’t go down far enough. 

Citadel, it should be noted, has their own brand of plastic glue, which I like well enough for plastic models. But I kept running into a problem with it, which was that the long metal tip kept getting clogged and I was left with a full bottle of glue that I couldn’t use. Sometimes I would even buy a brand new bottle of Citadel glue and it would already be clogged and I would have just wasted $8. 

HOWEVER: I learned a tip with Citadel plastic glue, which is that if you light a match and run it under the metal tip it will immediately clear the clog. Don’t sue me if this starts a fire–I’ve never had any problems with it being particularly flammable–but it has helped me get through the clog. Still, I prefer Tamiya.

Hot Tip: Tamiya “Sprue Goo”

If you want to do something special with your Tamiya plastic glue, you can break up little bits of sprue and drop them into the bottle. The bits will melt in the glue and you will end up with a kind of spreadable paste that can be used to fill gaps. I find that Sprue Goo is far more useful than Liquid Green Stuff, even though they fill the same role in the miniatures world. 

Best Superglue

Superglue is an essential component of any miniature hobbyist’s arsenal. If you’re working gluing metals or gluing resins, then super glue is going to be the best tool. But there are so many superglues out there: which one should you pick?

For a LONG time I have always recommended Loctite Super Glue Gel or Loctite Super Glue Professional. I looked in my Amazon history and I have bought the Loctite Super Glue Liquid Professional 2-Pack twelve times. I’m pretty brand loyal. 

Loctite has a problem, however, which is that it doesn’t leave a smooth surface. Very often Loctite glue, when it dries, will clump or create a crusty texture. And I don’t like that. Also, Loctite glue bottles tend to get clogged. They’re not that hard to unclog with a pair of nippers (you don’t cut the clog off but you grab around the sides of the over-glued tip and pull up, removing the “cap” from the tip.)

Another type of super glue, one of the strongest super glues is Gorilla Super Glue Gel, but I don’t tend to like it as it can expand when it dries, making the two surfaces not perfectly aligned. Don’t get me wrong–when it comes to terrain, I swear by Gorilla Glue. But you have to be aware that it’s going to grow as it dries. 

For precision applications of superglue, I have recently taken a liking to very thin super glues. My current favorite is StarBond Super Fast Thin. Admittedly, it’s not great for metal adhesion (though it can work with metal) but it is very precise with very tiny applicators, and an anti-clog cap. It’s high-strength, has a fast curing time, and works well for miniatures. Basically, when I need to glue two small details together, I turn to StarBond. When I need to glue two large pieces together, I turn to Loctite. 

Hot Tip: Removing Super Glue

Sometimes you glue something and you realize you did it wrong. Never fear with superglue, because there’s a quick fix. 

Put the model that you’ve glued incorrectly in the freezer and let it get very cold–like maybe an hour or so. Then you can remove it and you should be able to pop the pieces apart. This is because superglue gets brittle in the cold and also because it doesn’t weld, it just glues. 

Superglue Accelerator

If you’re working with superglue, then you’re going to want to be familiar with superglue accelerators. An accelerator works as the name suggests–it accelerates the bonding time of the glue, usually to an almost instantaneous cure. 

There are a wide variety of accelerators. The easiest is baking soda, which you can sprinkle on superglue and it will instantly cure. The problem with this is that it leaves a little clod of hardened baking soda and glue, which doesn’t look great. 

I have been told that blowing cigarette smoke on superglue will act as an accelerator, but I’ve never tried it. (Don’t smoke, kids.)

My personal favorite brand of superglue accelerator is Mitre Apel. I half-jokingly tell people that it’s going to give me cancer one day, because it really doesn’t smell very good and I think it’s made in Turkey (the instructions aren’t in English) but it works very well. There are other accelerators you can get, though, such as Starbond Instant, Bob Smith Industries, and Adhesive Guru.