Hi When scratch building with pre formed styrene materials like brick or clapboard do you mount this to a sheet of thicker styrene to give it support? If so, what thickness works the best? And how do you glue the 2 together? thanks
If the stock, such as Evergreen brand is .020 inch thick or greater, I just use it as is and don't laminate it to anything else. I usually bevel the corners to 45° angle at the corners using a large, very sharp, flat file and then glue together with a solvent like Tenax 7R. I then add a strip of .030" square stock on the inside to get a good joint. The only thing I laminate is some of the Plastruct styrene patterns as they are quite thin. I try to use heavy stock like .040 under them to help avoid warping that sometimes occurs after a few years. I have a few buildings I made years ago that have bowed walls.
Thanks How do you laminate the 2 sheets? Do you use the same glue and cover the whole surface, or just do spots or streaks here and there?
Chris, I usually just brace the edges with .040 square strips, rather than laminating. Sometimes it takes a lot of strips! Some of my earlier buildings from .020 styrene have caved it a bit. I just call them old.
When I do laminate, I use the same solvent type glue. I only bond two surfaces at the edges and any openings like windows. The capillary action of the cement wicks it in from the edge a little if you pry the two pieces apart with a few pins.
Can you laminate ABS with styrene, and if so what glue. I found some black ABS and thought it would be good to use for lighted structures. Then one would only have to paint the corners possibly, to keep the light from shining through.
The two plastics do not mix well together when using a straight solvent. The bond is very weak. About the only thing that kind of works for ABS to Styrene is the Plastruct cement. It has some sort of residual bonding agent left behind that sticks to both plastics after the solvent has evaporated. And then you open yourself up to warping as the bonds cure. As a rule, I stay away from laminating when at all possible. I have had too many buildings warp and bow after a few years. Notice how the roof on this house curls up at the edges like a pagoda.
I have never scratch built, but I plan to in N scale. Maybe for N scale, supports for thin styrene walls is not that big an issue???