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I received my pack of syringes and needles a couple of days ago but had been so busy I hadn't been given the chance to test them. In case you're curious as to the exact equipment I ordered them from smallparts.com. They have a supply of lots of small hardware and lab-like equipment at cheap prices, typically they sell large amounts though. In my case it was 10 syringes and 25 syringe needles. I'll list the part numbers here:
SYR-001CC-10
NE-152PL-25
You can find syringes and syringe needles under the Lab Utensils subcategory of the Lab & Scientific products main category, or just type "syringe" in the search box. The total cost was a bit over $16.00. These are 1cc syringe, so very small, and 15 gauge blunt tip needles. It was a bit messy starting off and trying to figure out how to get the glue neatly into the syringe and such, but the application was fairly straightforward.
Sadly, for myself, this gauge opening is too large for my tastes. It produces a bead that scaled up, I would compare to be the equivalent of silicon caulking. However, it does produce EXTREMELY neat results as compared to spreading with a toothpick. To test it I basically glued two card edges at 90 degrees from one another and applied glue to only one side of the formed corner. I did it three different times to establish what degree of control was necessary. Despite trying to squeeze slowly, too much glue would flow (I use Elmer's Glue-All), perhaps this could be improved by leaving the glue exposed to air a while in order to acquire a bit more tack. Elmer's glue from what I've seen tends to be more fluid and less viscous, probably why it's cheaper.
Regarding the technique in order to make a smaller bead I basically have to increase the travel speed of the needle tip. I'm not much for the amalgam and speed of precision. I tend to be much better at precision if I can focus and work slowly as opposed to swift and steady motions (never been that good at caulking either). I stumble on an interesting discovery in that if I laid the stream of glue down and then ran the needle tip over the stream (without adding more glue) it would spread the glue away from the corner seam and leave a more reasonable amount of glue at the weld. Of course, this simply shifts the glue to the outside so it's still somewhat unsightly, but this could be concealed within the model.
Lastly, I find it would probably be better to squeeze some glue out into a receptacle and then suck the glue into the syringe, as opposed to trying to fill the syringe from the back and then insert the plunger. Obviously this is what syringes are designed to do, I just tried it backwards first to see if I would have better results and not produce any glue waste, but I made a mess anyhow. Cleanup was really easy. I just filled the syringe with water and pressed down hard on the plunger and it pretty much cleaned itself. I did this immediately after the tests to avoid the glue setting inside the syringe.
My conclusion is that 15 gauge is not the gauge you want to be working with. I think I'm going to see if I can find a 19 gauge or 18 gauge syringe needle somewhere locally, as that seems like it would produce a much better result and be easier to work with; despite a tedious cleanup.
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