comments:
Depends on what you are doing. If you are layering cardboard, use wood glue. When I used to do cardboard props, I would use the light tan/off-white colored Elmer's brand one https://a.co/d/08crir63 This stuff hardens really good for things like swords. You should still use a core of some kind, but for smaller props that can't really fit a core, it hardens enough to be pretty stiff. Tape is good for things like putting thin edges together. Take this Cloud sword I made over a decade ago: https://imgur.com/a/6au3oJE I used tape to hold the edges together. So the entire back is taped out, going from one side, over the back, to the other side, and then the edge of the blade is all taped to hold that together. And then the Material slots are taped around the edges. The issue with tape though, is it's a lot harder to hide. You can see around the materia slots, all of the tape I used under all the layers still. I used multiple coats of gesso as well as multiple coats of silver spray paint, and it would NOT cover the tape. It's hard to see in that photo, but you could see the tape texture nearly everywhere there was tape. So keep that in mind if you want to use tape. And I used masking tape. The tan stuff. I used really wide tape to cover more surface using less tape, but you can do whatever youw ant. Masking tape is basically required because things like duct tape, or electrical tape, or pretty much any other tape, you can't really paint over. Stuff just doesn't stick. But it DOES stick to masking tape, because it's a paper type material.