I’ve tried to heat the warped walls with a hair dryer and put books on top; however, the walls do not flatten. Do I need to make the walls hotter?
What is the best way to flatten warped plastic parts?
Thank you!
Hi,
Just a suggestion;
Does the building kit come with a base? If so, put a thin layer of plastic weld cement (the type that melts the plastic slightly e.g. revell) along the base on the edge where the warped wall is to go. Then put the wall in place and hold it straight as the glue sets - bear in mind this will take some time, so you might like to do it in front of the TV or something.
Hope this helps,
tbdanny
A really old method for doing this requires two sheets of glass and a sunny day. Place the piece(s) to be flattened between the sheets of glass and place them in the sun. Keep an eye on them, and as soon as the pieces flatten, remove the whole thing from the sunny area and allow it to cool. Once it has cooled and the plastic rehardened, you can remove it/them from between the sheets of glass.
My experience with the hair dryer method is that as a rule going “too far” happens “so fast” but with great patience it can be made to work, assuming we aren’t talking about a huge expanse of warped plastic. Actually I have to say, I did not use a hair dryer because using one could be a slow wait, but I used a similar looking, but significantly hotter, heat gun – not the kind that strips paint but is used for craft projects involving rubber stamping. Again it puts out way more heat and you have to almost sense when you have made the plastic close to liquid state without going too far.
You might have but one opportunity to get it right versus destroying the piece. I suspect a sponge with cold water in it would be a good thing to have on hand to do the actual pressing down on a flat hard surface such as glass or an old mirror. Anyway here is the heat gun I bought at a craft store:
I got mine because I wanted to try out these new Woodland Scenics grass sheets on vinyl backing.
The heat of the sun technique is one I have not tried, and given the kind of fall we are having here in Milwaukee Wisconsin this year it might be the NMRA National in July 2010 before I could try it. [;)]
I guess I’d also say that it is my experience that severe warps might have to be regarded as a lost cause, assuming they
Unfortunately I have melted more then my fair share of walls and the folks at Walthers have been super nice about replacing them, so I tried a little different spin on the hair dryer method I clamp the wall down to a flat cookie sheet or piece of flat sheet metal. After clamping I heat the bottom of the sheet sort of distributing the heat more evenly then just passing the hair dryer over it, all you need is to keep the dryer in one spot a little too long and OOPS! I have a friend who does it a little differently he pre-heats the cookie sheet to maybe 200 degrees and then lays the wall on it and places a heavy book or something similar on top of it. He said he has also clamped it to the sheet and put it in the oven for a few min. A little too risky for me and I don’t need to deal with my wife screaming at me for melting plastic in her oven. I would say I have about an 80% to 90% success rate doing it this way.
You can try the hair dryer thing or try holding the piece under warm (hot) tap water while over bending it in the opposite direction. It may take more than a few attemps and may NOT work.
The other option, similar to gluing them on to a base, which may indeed take a while to cure (I’d use a fast liquid cement like Ambroid rather than tube glue), is to use stock styrene to reinforce/brace the wall(s).
Glued an “L” or “I” beam piece (something that won’t easily bend) to the inside of the wall, away from windows and doors and set a flat weight on it while it cures. You can use either liquid or tube glue for this as your don’t have to hold it in place. You might even want to get creative with cross members. Do it right and you might give the structure some interior detail as well.
Archer1
Back in the day, I had a good deal of luck straightening warped fuselages and wings of model airplane kits using the “hot tap water” method. However, it does take time - don’t look for instant gratification with that one. Usually I could get them close enough to being straight that I could glue them together and use rubber bands to take out the remaining warp.
However, if you are really in a hurry and in keeping with the Mytbusters motto of “anything worth doing is worth over doing…”
-George
Success! Thank you for your help. After considering all of your ideas, this is how I flatten my warped plastic walls:
Put a toaster oven next to the range hood. (Back up ventilation plan in case I melted the plastic.)
Preheated the toaster oven to 200 degrees. (A toaster oven is better than your wife’s oven and better controlled than the sun or heat gun.)
Put the warped wall on a flat surface and into the oven.
Watched the wall. It will flatten and/or begin to warp more. This took 2 to 5 minutes depending on the wall and the warp.
As soon as the piece flattened and before it warped again, removed it from the oven and stacked heavy books on it.
The result: flat walls!
Of course, before I experimented, I had replacement walls in hand!
A risky method but it worked on the first try which is what matters. Now I wonder what the next toasted cheese sandwich tasted like …
Dave Nelson