I’m currently struggling to get straight lines when cutting. Any advice?
How thick is your Plasticard, @Bigguy511?
Not sure, maybe 1/16 of an inch
Are you using scissors?
I wouldn’t use scissors, I suggest to use those paper cutters that teachers used in school when they split sheets of paper in half
Okay, I’ll have to check that out!
I can find one too if you need me to, I know a few places that sell them for a good price and they are new
Cool, I’ve been using a combination of Exacto knives and a Dremel, so that was probably also a factor.
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Here ya go @Bigguy511
Dremels are kind of hard to use same with Exacto Knives
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Thanks man! I’ll be grabbing that lol
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Yeah, of course! 
If you need anything, let me know I’m pretty good with making/editing drawings and stuff like this too lol 
Same here, If you ever go to new England, I can tell you where some of the Very Many cool stuff is here, It’s insane the catches up here. For example, On MBTA territory near Ayer, MA, The SD60E’s are the only engines with cab Signals compatible to lead on MBTA territory, As well as a ton of Dash 8s, and some Pan-Am stragglers.
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Will do @Bigguy511!
When I was 13 or 14 I used to beg my mom to take me to New England to see the Patriots play - I don’t like football, I just wanted to go just to see the MBTA, we never ended up going because of covid
First dumb question: Does ‘score and snap’ (using a sharp #1 X-acto or scalpel blade for the score) not work? (I cheat and put the stock in the freezer before snapping…)
What I used ‘back in the day’ was a tool devised for automobile modeling, called a ‘hot knife’ – this was basically a #1 X-acto blade clamped in a collet threaded into the business end of a temperature-controlled soldering iron. You score the stock where the cut lines will be, which helps prevent raising a ‘hump’ of heated plastic pushed up be the taper of the blade. Any residual deformation of the edge can be sanded back with fine sandpaper or lapping film on glass.
I used a heavy metal straightedge for scoring, with a beveled cutting edge. That had enough weight that the scoring tool wouldn’t push the edge away from the line.
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I’ll assume that “Plasticard” is polystyrene. I also scratch the board with a utility knife and then cut it by folding along the scratches. This method works better the thinner the board, and is almost perfect for boards under 0.050 inches.
However, with boards 0.060 (1/16) inches thick, failure is common. With boards over 0.080 inches, it’s impossible. The method suggested by @Woke_Hoagland of cooling the board in the freezer beforehand may be effective. This is because materials generally become brittle at low temperatures. I’ll try that if I get the chance.
‘Plasticard’ is an English product. I always assumed that the name derived from ‘paper modeling’ and scratchbuilding with cardstock; the ‘plastic replacement’ for which would have a sensible (in British English) tradename. We just called it ‘styrene sheet’ in the olden days (we used ‘styrene’ rather than ‘polystyrene’ for the plastic in hobby model kits back then).
ABS (as in Plastruct) has a very similar nominal glass transition temperature to hobby polystyrene (about 105 C vs. 100 C) but as these are fundamentally amorphous as formed, there’s a range of temperature rather than a sharp transition in that range. It has been my experience that many polystyrene parts will still bend rather than snap at room temperature, but when cooled behave in a more brittle fashion; since the scoring is directed ‘stress raising’ even small additional brittle behavior at the apex of the ‘score’ can help.
@Woke_Hoagland, thank you for your explanation of “Plasticard”. It’s a completely unknown material to me. I watched a YouTube video and was amazed at how difficult it is to cut and glue. What is this material? What are its advantages over polystyrene or ABS? I’m already full of questions.
PS: Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) perhaps? In Japan, soft PVC is used for dolls (figures), but hard PVC was used for only one kit in 1971. Flame-retardant pipes and plates are often used for 1/1 scale rolling stocks.
Is this the material used in some 3D printers?
PS 2nd: I had forgotten that transparent, 0.020" thick PVC is used for the window glass in the model. In the past, the adhesive was a synthetic rubber-based one (like Walthers Goo), but in recent years, white wood glue has also been used.
The adhesive looks white immediately after application, but becomes transparent after a day and night. The body shell of the caboose is made of polystyrene. [May 15, 2025]
I’d been assuming that Plasticard was sheet (poly)styrene. There are various ‘flavors’ of PVC, but I have never heard of it being used for model structural purposes. I am familiar with bonding PVC with ‘purple primer’ and so-called ‘all-purpose’ pipe cement, which is both an etching and solvent bond combined with some dissolved polymer or oligomer – but I’ve only used it for structural pipe joining in ferrules fittings; it would be lousy as an attempted butt join.
Of course, I don’t remember it being called ‘Plastikard’ with a ‘K’ either, so this might be some competing thing. Here’s the delightfully-'90s web site:
They coyly say it is a ‘mixture of several ingredients’ which would hint ‘ABS’ to me, but then they say this about their equally ingredient-unspecified solvent adhesive:
It would seem obvious that this used methyl ethyl ketone as a key solvent when introduced, but it also seems the formula was changed by 2017 to something less ‘health unfriendly’ that clearly doesn’t work as well – I see indications that 2-butanone might be a ‘bulk’ chemical that might do better, particularly if ethyl acetate or some amount of polystyrene sprue is dissolved in it for attritional prompt ‘tack’. I would certainly try the Purple Primer if you have that or a suitable substitute available locally, as other methods of surface activation might be too difficult or costly for ‘hobbyist’ use…