Review: Clear PVA glue - The Works

It was an exciting moment when I dropped into remaindered book shop The Works, and found they had bottles of a clear PVA glue on sale. 

We all know that PVA is supposed to start white and dry clear, but this stuff is properly clear in the bottle. I mean, seriously clear. What witchcraft is this? 

In my modelmaking, I use gallons of PVA. Sometimes it's used neat and sometimes thinned with water. I use so much I actually have a favourite brand from the building trade. 

So, is this new stuff any good? I had to buy a bottle to try it out. 

First impressions

It's clear. And slightly runnier than the 502 PVA I normally use. Slightly shiny too - a bit like one of the cheaper PVAs which always seem plasticy to me compared to the matt stuff of 502 or resin W. Maybe, this is because it's sold as a "craft" product rather than a wood glue. 

Sticking things down

Good - the clear glue stays clear and dries nice and matt. I wasn't too careful about the pieces shown above and yet you can't see any splurges around the edges. 

I'd say the drying time, or at least the time to grab, is slightly slower then other glues, but not enough to worry me. 

Ballasting

Thinned with ordinary tap water plus a couple of drops of washing up liquid, the odd thing was that the mix appeared slightly blue - then I realised this was the detergent put in to break surface tension. 

For test materials, I used some Woodland Scenics beige ballast and random granite stuff found in the bottom of the ballast tub. Both have stuck, but are still slightly spongy unlike the rock hard result from traditional glue. This might confer a benefit for sound deadening, but I haven't tested that.

Drying time seemed pretty normal and the granite hasn't turned a green shade as it does with normal glue. 

Modelling water

The test piece is some DIY wall filler splodged on car, painted with brown emulsion and then treated to several thin coats of glue. 

Obviously this stuff should have an advantage over traditional PVA, what with it being water-colour to start with and this carries on when dry. The results are nice and shiny. I poured about 1mm each time for four pours. I reckon it looks OK. 

Conclusion

I like this stuff and will keep a bottle in stock in the future. Some tests to compare joint strength would be interesting, but really I see the "sticking things down" test being the key and there joint strength isn't much of an issue. Well worth a look - has anyone else tried it?