wonwinglo

The modellers friend is a material called Plastikard,armed with a few sheets of varying thicknesses of this material endless conversions,modifications,repairs and even complete models can be built from it,the material is polystyrene sheet cut into convenient panels for use in model building,I have used it for every conceivable application in modelling including glueing together panels to fabricate complete wings and tail sections.There are a few tips which will make life easier when working with this material,the basic tools are a wide tipped marker pen of any colour,a sharp craft knife,an Olfa cutter,steel rule and a Sandvik sanding block,the latter has been found to be the most versatile of sanders which is made from a tough cross hatched nylon material,if you cannot get hold of one then make up some of your own sanding blocks from tungston carbide paper obtainable from car accessory outlets.The Olfa cutter is invaluable and drags a strip of plastic from the surface enabling you to make a clean break in the material,lastly a bottle of MEK made by Slaters and a small cheap paintbrush for applying it.
To make marking out easier make card templates from cereal box packing,cut these out and sand the edges ( yes card sands well ) where the material is going to be marked out you can use the wide chisel marker to make the job easier by using it like the old engineers blue,once dry place the template firmly onto the plastic card surface and with the Olfa tool drag it around the template,carry right on until the marks join and taking the card in your hands gently snap off the surplus material,you will find this easier than trying to make several cuts through the material itself.You can now clean up the edges with your sanding tool and also find the craft knife suitable to scrape away any surplus material.
To stick Plastikard together simply hold the parts together and run a flow of MEK along the join,capillery reaction will do the job straight away,put the parts aside for a few hours to dry out and clean up later with finer grades of wet and dry paper.To make such things as buildings or boxlike structures etc you can easily re-inforce with strips of square section plastic and you will not only find the job easier to handle but much stronger as well.
Whether you are just filling in a void left from a conversion or building a brand new model this material will find a ready use on your workbench.
There are other advanced techniques that you can use with this material which we will deal with some other time.

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'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

adzam

excee;ent timing barry as i`m about to build a superstructure for a tug out of plasticard rather than plywood, for ease of assmbly and cutting and also weight saving.

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wonwinglo

*** Now that is what we call model telephapy Adz !

Bunkerbarge

I've included a couple of shots of my boat Boiler Water Feed Tank made from platicard.

I used plasticard as is was the easiest material to buy which I could glue together and ensure a watertight job.

The stuff is so easy to use in this type of application and incredibly versatile.

The internal frames are to assist with rigidity and to reduce the tanks "Free Surface Effect".

Attached Images

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wonwinglo

Nice job there Richard,and it shows to good advantage the versatility of this easily obtained material.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Nigel.D

plasticard is the staple diet of us plastic modellers it cuts easy and a quick brush with liquid poly it glues so well!! i use it for virtually every scratchbuilt item in my kits ! By the way Barry mentions the P cutter It is the best tool in the world for marking recessed panel lines on models

wonwinglo

Dont forget to check out the 'Plastruct' display next time that you visit your local model shop,you can get all types of section in plastic to use with the plastikard,also a company called Slaters used to do all sorts of variations on this material including corrugated,ideal for making up those wartime nissan hut buildings for dioramas etc.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/