StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives

Five Star are still trading, UK company, UK VAT registered technicaly trading from the UK Manufacturing 100% in Bulgaria, Supplying Direct from Bulgaria UK unit is now as of last month empty letters diverted to here, new address will be on site soon ( as soon as i am happy that it is secure enough to publish the address ) We gave notice to landlords back in September that we were leaving but they wont return deposit due to glue fumes damaging the roof so we are arguing about it..... At the minute we are concentrating on trade manufacturing no retail mail order is available We will still do a few shows in the UK every year, ones we always do such as Weston Park, The Nats maybe a few other modeling ones plus the engineering and wood working ones Soon.... ( not sure when ) mail order SHOULD become available ( only when i can make sure it is reliable) The reason mail order is not available is....... As a chemical manufacturer it is very diffficult to do retail as well! , anytime now.... mail order should be back available but that may be anytime from a few weeks to a few months, it will not be available until I am happly that we can give a good service and that the staff can do it with no mistakes or delays All adhesives are still manufacatured by my own company , as they have always been, no brand/supply changes etc have happened or ever will as all manufacture is at my own factory. Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 16/12/2015 11:18:51

Our 5 Star Canopy glue should do it with no problems , but will take longer as plastic to plastic, slower than canopy onto wood (one surface porous) and often slower than onto a plastic covering as plastic to plastic moulded parts tend to fit better so less area exposed to air for evaporation , when I do this I put tiny pin holes in the underside of the joint to get faster bonding through out the bondline.

Posted by Andy Green on 08/06/2015 11:58:50: I've given up using them, since I'm still owed monies, You went through this on the forum before christmas.....you ordered something out of stock, you said you would wait till in stock, I asked you for details to send you a refund, YOU read and ignored my message... the only way for me to refund your £3 or £4 or whatever it was is for you to give me payment details to send it to.

Posted by Andy Green on 08/06/2015 11:58:50: Yet again its the customers fault, why not just disable the shopping cart side of the site. At no point have I said it was the customers fault? if a customer cant select payment mathod (as previously used) and they cant pay, they cant order!, all payment methods are deleted!,nothing to click on so orders cant complete now Its absolutely impossible to disable the cart! it would be a great feature but its not there..... Maybe you should phone up one of the Uks largest e-shop providers and tell them to make it possible!, but it has not worked for anyone else! Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 08/06/2015 12:12:45 Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 08/06/2015 12:13:50

Absolutely not not my usual enthusiastic self.... , I had just driven back 3000 Km!, Back from 40C in Bulgaria to 10C in the UK and im at 2 hours later in the day...so getting up at about 4.30am UK time

Sorry about contact problems, but It does say on the shop4glue ( our only retail site ) that we are temporarily closed, at present, we did change the date once but this could not be helped. 99.9% of people do not pay before recipt of order so this makes it easier to sort out Anyone who ordered since Feb when we temporarily suspended mail order and if they did pay by BACS ( only payment method that was on site) has been sent an email asking for BACS details for us to return payment and as far as I know there are no outstanding paid orders. Only bulk orders are being processed as we are not allowed to trade as a retailer or mail order from our new factory in Bulgaria, until the paperwork is sorted out...and there is a lot of paperwork to sort out. We temporarily closed back in February when we placed a message on site giving 2 weeks notice that we would be closing from that date, we actually stayed longer in the UK to ensure ALL orders were posted out including many that were made after we had actually said we were closed. Original closure was until March, this was/has been extended, twice ( listed on site ) ALL orders placed before the end of February were posted out ( i think the 23rd Feb.....could be 24th Feb ( date was on the site saying closed from that date) Any orders past this point have not been processed, as we are closed for the Summer while relocating. We were supposed to reopen back in March.... and close again in June to move....we didn`t reopen due to problems with paperwork on the new factory delaying the return to the UK, this was advised on the mail order site....the only one with ordering for retail customers Any emails and phone calls can not be answered.....for now at least as the contacts are all in the UK for now, until we reopen the mail order as all is moved to Bulgaria.... We have moved mainly to Bulgaria, the factory in Runcorn is still there and glue sold in the UK is still made there for the next few shows and then everything will be made in Bulgaria , We are moving items to Bulgaria during the year, however we are not actually working from Runcorn any longer the Runcorn unit will no longer be used at all past later this year....when we have moved everything! New telephone number ( UK local rate ) will be diverted to Bulgaria from the start of September, maybe sooner....maybe a bit later depending on how long everything takes to sort out We have just attended the Longmarston model show a couple of  weekends ago as I am in the UK for 3 weeks.......... at that show I recorded on my phone another trader...... ( strange man selling magic universal glue ) stating we were `out of business/closed down etc`, this is not the case in any way!, We are still trading 100%...same company that I started about 25 or so years ago, just a temporary suspension of retail mail order while we move. Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 08/06/2015 11:55:25

Posted by Andy Green on 29/11/2014 12:46:20: I could cry. Order arrived but the polyurethane glue wasn't sent. So after waiting 23 days I still don't have what ordered. Have check website snd it still lets me order it so not a live stock system. I have invoice hand corrected with a new total to be paid in 14 days. I HAVE PAID. Now I have to try and get my money refunded, as as Starloc say they don't answer phone and can't answer emails so how do I do that. Starloc if you read this how do I process my refund? Do you want to discuss it in this thread as to be honest is the only contact I've had with you. Andy It is a live stock system, but things are also sold offline and as with most peoples systems it can go wrong, Things are manufactured almost every day and things run out, the system works most of the time, we just add things running out to manufacturing list but with these order volumes its hard to keep up If you PM me your bacs details I will refund to that, or paypal address and I can paypal it to you?

Posted by Biggles' Elder Brother - Moderator on 29/11/2014 14:04:03: Posted by StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 29/11/2014 00:24:57: We have invested 350000 euros in a New call and email center Erm, you could have someone (a real person!) full time to answer the phone and emails for 20,000euros? BEB Yes.....but the real person would need to stand in the car park as they could not fit in the UK units! The problem is one person would also not solve the problem as sales are rising every week. We have no limit to expansion in Bulgaria which is why the call handling ( with real people.....? ) is to be based there.

oops!, i missed off the `sorry about the delays`, too busy writing the rest of it Sorry to anyone affected by the delay in orders at present   We give out the telephone number as we plan to answer it, obviously!, we are just too busy at the minute every 5 minute call takes the place of packing an order, every call is followed by another and another etc etc , when its on the hook we take a lot of orders that way as well, it needs to be off until we catch up .... The new number will be answered, during working hours and possibly longer eventually to the different time zones   Emails are not ignored? , but to sort through that much spam, things get missed , we get that many it can take some time to even load the list onto the screen   What are we doing about the problems We have invested 350000 euros in a New call and email center that will/should open early to mid January maybe the start of February , depending on weather over christmas for the rest of the building work, if the temperature drops too cold work will stop unless the heating is finished New dedicated mail order phone number/s will start to be available over the next couple of weeks, at first answered in UK, afterwards in Bulgaria We are considering changes to servers so we can get at emails quicker We obviously dont want a delay , Problems like this are difficult to cure , we do not only sell in the model trade , we get around 500 to 1000 orders a week in the UK, 2 people packing them in them, there is only so much time, this should be sorted once the new place is open, but will take some time to get it working full speed due to training packers   Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 29/11/2014 00:27:05

We bought the rights to make the mini flying machine as one of the Miniature Aircraft Factory kits off Peter back in 1997 or so and made it for some years on and off in its printed wood form, in recent years we have made a few laser cut ones but not many of them, only if people really wanted one due to lack of time We still have all his rubber stamps, templates and plan masters for the original kits It always flew very well as long as you could fly......., it was one of my first rc models....an idea that didnt work out well! especially with an os10 in it, once I could fly I had another go and that was far more successful Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 28/11/2014 22:02:10

There are some delays.....almost upto date with orders, but orders will always possibly take a week, many,many orders go out the same day as they are ordered. We get a backlog when we close for eg a holiday or a show , we can do nothing about this, we put it on the main page of the site People order when we are closed, and we get a backlog, there are limits to how many can be packed per day when we reopen, we closed for about 3 weeks in September that made us 3 weeks behind!, and we have now caught up almost, we packed new ones and old ones ( from both ends ( and the middle ) of the orders ) Telephone is on outgoing only as we have no time to answer it! , every time we stop to answer it takes parcel packing time, we used to end up putting it off the hook and now its off for now till we catch up with orders A new phone number will be listed soon, but will be answered in Bulgaria ( by an English speaker! ), The same problem with emails, a contact form will soon be on site and only emails through that will be answered to help filter out the spammers, we get tens of thousands of emails a week and there are too many to try and filter out ones that need answering, we try but many get missed DO NOT PAY BEFORE YOU GET YOUR ORDER ! we give free credit! Anyone who orders will get there order, but do not pay before you get it!.....if an item is out of stock for some reason we will be able to alter the total, everyone gets free credit after order receipt, FAR SAFER THAN PAYING BY CARD! The names of the company have NEVER changed! and any names we trade as are all still used. We own somewere between 950 and 1200 domain names at the UK addresses , manly for adhesives , all owned by Five star products our UK VAT registered name, another 100 or so domain names in my own name in the UK, and a few in Czech republic and Bulgaria Our original company is in the UK called Five Star Products we still are called Five Star Products upto 2 years ago it had a prefix FMK ( FMK/ FiveStar Products) , we took the FMK off when I moved kit manufacturing ( FMK ) to Bulgaria, Most of the other names are brand names, each name for different range of products, many have there own website , hence the number of websites StarLoc the chemical manufacturing company in the UK, not connected to most of the Bulgarian products, but does manufacture some StarLoc products for sale not in UK  All glues sold from the UK ( in the UK, with English labels from English websites ) are manufactured in the UK 100% My other Bulgarian companies have there own range of purely industrial bulk adhesive products , with Bulgarian Cyrillic labels so easy to identify as not being from the UK Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 28/11/2014 21:45:47 Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 28/11/2014 21:46:53

I have just bought a UK registered Mitsubishi Warior in Bulgaria 2 weeks ago with road tax running out at the end of the month, Tried to tax it online a week ago , website says you cant unless at a post office Car listed as being sold already, once listed as sold if not yet registered cant be taxed online or by phone only at post office till owner is changed Left it in Bulgaria and flew 2000 miles back from Bulgaria to the UK to tax it In the past it has worked , they must have changed it, car now in Bulgaria taxed with no disk, police just stopped a friend driving it and demanded UK tax disk...25 pound fine now for not having it..... Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 02/10/2014 14:21:49

A decent odourless CA has no fumes so should not irritate your eyes breathing in any way, A carbon mask with the correct rating will cut out the fumes from a standard type CA glue, or other chemical if needed The best way to act with any chemical.... ( even if it seems safe! ) is to lower the concentration in the air anyway, mask or no mask, irritated by something or not Most labels say use in well ventilated conditions......

Use a couple of tiny pieces (about 3mm wide) of sticky tape equaly spaced to pull it together, once in place use tiny drop of very thin cyano onto the closed up joint away from the tape, use a very thin wicking grade cyano, remove the tape and then ca those bits , If you put the CA on with a pin placed into the center of the surface of the joint it will only run into the bondline not outside and not get on your film To remove the tape, peel it from each end towards the centre, not across the joint end to end to stop film damage Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 27/07/2014 12:37:51

The main thing is to keep good ventilation in the room when modelling, not just when using CA , when using anything. and when not modelling Many household chemicals are far worse and are used more often. CA is one of the safest as you can smell it so there is a warning of it being there and its non toxic, Some products like polyurethane foaming glues are toxic and you cant smell them so get no warning of the fume levels in the room Common allergies in modelling are to epoxy and polyurethane glue fumes along with wood dust and to the resin in wood and other materials such as plastics and GRP when cutting with a saw or Dremel, CA often gets the blame as you can smell it.

The jammers sold for stopping phones, take down every phone near by, easily , completely illegal to do this as its so dangerous for emmergencys etc, they do take down rc systems but only close by due to power of them they have no range The ones you usually get for sale a range of about 5 meters , cost about £40 to 60 , any more range than that and the cost is much higher people use them to take down surveilence equipment and trackers etc in there cars and offices, but they are totaly illegal in the UK without a licence Do a saerch for mobile jammer, hundreds of people sell them on lline  Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 19/05/2014 14:44:48

Sorry about any delays! We were closed from early march until the 23rd of April for easter holidays at the Bulgaria Factory , We had a problem returning due to the rain, it rained and rained and rained and rained some more for about 10 days ( the heaviest rain on record ) http://www.novinite.com/articles/160114/Situation+After+Floods+in+Bulgaria+Back+to+Normal%2C+3+Still+Missing Our problem was that driving back there are only very small dirt track roads and most were destroyed and many tiny bridges over rivers were not there, so we needed to wait until they repaired them, at the best of times it takes about a day to drive 200 miles across Bulgaria , but with the rain, landslides, collapsed roads it was just too dangerous to drive We needed to drive through Bulgaria & Romania and botth were flooded We couldnt change the message on the site that said we were on holiday till the 23rd due to only having mobile internet and the weather took that out,, until we got back early hours of the morning on the 4th of May. Last week we have been doing orders and this week, the phone was answered most of the time ( but of the hook some times to get time to pack the orders ) most of last week ,yesterday and today till about 2 to 3pm Thursday to Monday this last weekend we were closed again for the harrogate model engineering show, we had forgoten we had booked it till Thursday due to getting back late All orders are being posted out this week, we should be upto date by the weekend. Sorry about the delays Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 14/05/2014 18:42:39 Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 14/05/2014 18:45:39

I had a foam acrowot and it wasnt glued in many places, both halves of the fuselage needed to be glued together from the motor mount to back of the wings, I used our clear flexible cyano and activator to fill the gap in places it wouldnt fit together due to bits of the glue already there

Have you seen this  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxQrR9cFt38  , it seems to fly a 40 size trainer ok I am just designing a model for mine, a mini version of my larger Zanin Z-jet powered one , i am going for about 30 inch span delta for the small jet , the Zanin powered delta is much bigger wing area at 42 inch span, but is a bit quick at about 3 or 4 times the power of thee HK one, the Z-jet does start easier though, i think because its bigger I dont fly them in the UK though, I fly on an old airfield The BMFA have a bit in there members booklet about the UK regulations for them, you need land owners permission due to the noise problems at least Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 01/04/2014 17:03:09 Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 01/04/2014 17:04:22

Sorry for contact problems.....  We were at a model Boat show at the weekend and closed on Monday to recover. We are also at another show this week end, a wood working show in Kent, setup day is tomorrow so we will be closed till Monday, This show is only open Friday and Saturday, so we should be in all next week , Any orders that are delayed due to the shows will be all posted out Monday/Tuesday We were in Tuesday & Wednesday but the phone is very busy, so often rings as engaged. Sorry about the contact problems Since the start of the February we have been running at a delay in posting that is slowly reducing, this backlog in orders should be up to date by Tuesday/Wednesday, Orders increased that much during February after we went to the Nurenburg toy fair that we just couldnt keep up, from this week we now have more help packing parcels so we can catch up hopefully by the middle of next week.  Delays shouldnt be much of a problem from now on, we have someone doing some of the shows for us, as well as this non UK foreign orders will be posted from outside the UK so making everything quicker for people dealing in the UK. Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 05/03/2014 23:41:06 Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 05/03/2014 23:50:21

Most DIY shop fillers have high levels of calcium carbonate or similar mixed in, this is for reduction of cost due to the high price of microspheres, calcium carbonate adds to the weight, some chemical companies now supply the microspheres blended with various other heavy fillers at various levels to make them easier to handle and prevent them floating round so much when mixing a product. Any other brand modelling fillers we have looked at ( that are not our manufacture ) have some other filler added, ours are pure microspheres in various resin binder mixes We use 3 types of microspheres in various fillers products , glass, phenolic resin and thermoplastic , they all have different weights and different properties and all modeling ones such as Micrex are used with no low cost filler only additives to improve performance This is why our ultra light model fillers are far lighter than the DIY store ones Our DIY store one we make in Bulgaria for sale as home decorating filler has calcium carbonate weighted microballoons Microballoons ( glass ) I think is a trademark of one manufacturer....Im not sure though , Other chemical companies do make glass and other base microspheres some are good some are not! I wouldnt mix a ready made filler with epoxy! Water will effect the cure, in different ways depending on the type of curing agent, some will speed up, some slow down, some wont set.....it depends on the formulation of both proucts thats if it mixes , the waterbased resin in the filler would probably coagulate instantly due to the epoxy hardener / catylist again it depends what resin is used. Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 24/02/2014 20:47:48

I use Profili to draw basic wing plans, and export the rib patterns, then load it into the cad pack to make the rest of the plan, Profili is a wing designer , great for ribs The best free cad pack I have found is DraftSight by dassault systems , its just like autocad but a bit easier to use

Ive always used cyano to glue Velcro down to EPP , Flexible cyano is best as it gives higher sheer strength, but std cyano seems to work fine

Posted by Dane Crosby on 26/11/2013 11:28:11: Ah, I have managed to answer my own question after a bit of research. Gorilla Glue: Diphenylmethane diisocyanate, isomers and homologues 45% to 60% Gator Glue Diphenylmethane diisocyanate, isomers and homologues 10%-30% So, Gator is a similar chemical construction, just a bit less gloopy stuff. Prbably takes longer to set but less foamy. I'll report back on a test piece. Its not that easy with polyurethanes, MDI is the isocyanate, the very reactive (and very very toxic  part , but to form a glue it is reacted with other components to form the reactive polyurethane, the polyurethanes can be made from a vast amount of chemicals, even natural things like sugars, the components are mixed , under nitrogen to prevent side reactions, always more MDI is used to leave a reactive end group on the polyurethane, the reactive group is required to crosslink in contact with water generating carbon dioxide gas in the process ( foaming the glue ) The polyurethane (strong) part of the glue is not actually listed , the other is just left ove from the reaction, different levels have different properties in the adhesive, but the main difference would be the other reactant in the polyurethane,the reactants are formed from chemicals such as polyethylene glycol , butylene glycol etc all have different properties of hardness and cure speed, rigidity , bond strength etc They may all sound similar glues but could be totally different, with no real differences on the data sheets Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 26/11/2013 12:09:43

2 to 5% glyoxal is quite normal , in a lot of the d3 and d4 waterproof grades its not exactly a low level, it is there to crosslink the PVA to give the water resistance so quite high levels are in the formulas, just usually enough to be below the levels were listing is required Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 12/11/2013 12:41:58 Edited By StarLoc FiveStar Adhesives on 12/11/2013 12:47:44