Weldwood or Barge contact cement? Which is the best contact cement for builders of puppets and cosplay?
When attaching foam to foam, I have discovered Barge Cement provides a stronger bond, and it dries quicker than Weldwood or other adhesives I have tried, for faster work.
Although Weldwood dries slower, I have found I can speed up the drying with a hairdryer. Set the hairdryer on low and blow it across the cement after it is applied to the foam. It will become tacky much quicker, and ready to attach to other pieces.
The one advantage Weldwood has is that it is considerably less expensive than Barge.
I surveyed other puppet makers and these were the responses I received:
- “I’ve used both. No preference, but always use a breathing protection/respirator mask.
- “It really depends on the application and what you are using it for.
- “I use Weldwood because the new formula of Barge has no Toluene. If you can find the old stuff I believe they are practically the same.”
Cement with Toluene is way quicker (you can glue it together in a couple of minutes) but it comes at the cost of your health if used in a nonventilated area.” - “If you want another alternative, latex-based and pretty safe to use indoors (only a slight ammonia smell/fumes, same as with latex) I recommend DR. Puppetstein Foam and Latex contact adhesive. As with newer formulations, you have to wait between 15 and 30 min until it’s ready to glue, but a really cool feature is that the level of stickiness is dependent on how hard you push it, so if you just lightly put it together and you are not happy, you can separate it and put it together again. Once you are happy, just push it together harder and it will stay strongly bonded.”
- “I use toluene-based contact cement when I want to power through something or I don’t care as much about precision/looks (like and inside armature) and the latex-based one for visible seams or parts that I don’t mind if they take longer while I work on other parts.”
- “Barge is more flexible when cured than Weldwood. This has never been an issue for me so I use whichever is handy.”
- “Barge. Just keeps getting stronger with age.”
- “I use Weldwood because I can walk into any hardware store and buy more. Barge I’d have to order.”
- “I’ve found Barge works slightly better but maybe I’m just suffering from expectation bias. I’ll use Weldwood in a pinch.“
- “I was introduced to Barge by the Evil Ted Smith YouTube channel. It instantly became my go-to adhesive. I couldn’t recommend it enough. Not that I’ve had a bad experience with Weldwood.”
The consensus seems to be that Barge is the preferred contact cement among puppet-makers, but neither product gets a bad review.
Another contact cement favored by some builders is Masters Contact Cement. It does have Toulene in it, which means faster drying and toxic fumes. Be sure to use your respirator.
When using any contact cement that has Toulene, be sure to have a well-ventilated work area or wear a respirator.
To Use Contact Cement:
Contact cement is applied to both pieces to be attached. It is then allowed to dry until tacky. At that point, the pieces are joined together and a permanent bond is formed.
A hair dryer can be used to dry the adhesive quicker before joining.
To separate pieces joined with contact cement, heat the piece with your hair dryer set on high heat. If it is a relatively fresh bond (a couple hours or less), the pieces should be easily separated with no damage.
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