What can I do with the leftover sprues from my plastic kits? Since I am not prone to throwing anything away, I would like to know.
Thanks,
-The current MR issue has sprue being used for drain pipes on structures.
-One of my modeling books has stretching sprue as a way of filling holes in models (hold the sprue over a flame and stretch it to the desired thickness, then cut it and place it in the hole).
I have an old box that office paper came in and there must be a hundred pieces of sprues in there just waiting for my fuel and oil tank piping project in the locomotive service facility. Also makes for great exterior piping and vents for structures. I’ve even seen people make swing sets, and play ground equipment out of them.
Yes, you can make credible standpipes for water and fuel, utility poles, fence posts, even rail-end bumpers. Cut to length, glued together into a retaining wall, scratched up with sandpaper, and then painted and weathered, they would look just like a log retaining wall.
-Crandell
As you can see, there are lots of uses for sprues. However, when I go on a kit-building spree, I end up with a real surfeit of the stuff. Not wanting to just throw it away, I fitted a waste basket with a plastic bag, then add any scrap plastic, whether sprues, plastic packaging, or plastic trimmings from scratchbuilding. When the bag is full, I put it in with the plastics for recycling.
Wayne
I have a number of frivilous suggestions for these casting sprues but I’ll give a serious one.
Way back in The Stone Age of model railroading I picked up a tip in the hobby press which suggested dissolving (styrene) plastic in plastic cement to create a paste which made a great filler material. I did dissolve some sprue material in Plastruct plastic cement on one occasion and it worked fine for me. A clinic presenter at the national convention in St Louis in 2001 mentioned that he did the same thing and he had a whole cigar box filled with leftover sprue material.
The thickness/thinness of this paste can be controlled by varying the plastic/cement ratio. This clinic presenter said that any material which may dry out can be reconstituted by the addition of more plastic cement but I’ve never tried this so I can’t give personal testimony to its effect. I think I would probably only mix up as much as I was going to use for this one project.
By the way, I have ground up dowels in a pencil sharpener and created a wood paste using wood glue; you cannot reconstitute this if it is allowed to dry out.
Roof/stove vent pipes. Gutter down spouts. If your going to add floors inside your buildings you can use them for floor/wall supports.
Ah!.. you beat me to it. We both must be over the hill…
I’m not sure if I’m “over-the-hill” or not but I do know that my back goes out more than I do!
I’m not exactly sure but I must have first encountered this tip back in the '60s somewhere. Model railroaders have discovered a lot of neat little tricks over the years - tricks for either economizing or expediting the hobby - and these things need to be passed on to our newer members in the brotherhood.
You can use it to make threads and wires. I’ve modelled the rigging of a battleship using plastic sprues held over a candle light. Then just slowly pull and you get some nice thin wires.
Magnus
Here’s a really off-the-wall idea.
Smooth the casting line on the sprue, then rotate it under (or over) a hobby saw to cut it off. Cut the opposite end to give a total length of 8 or 12 scale feet (or appropriate metric dimension.) Paint to suit. Viola! Rolled carpet.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I make torpedo tubes out of some of them, I just stick them one my “crazy loco”
I’ve always dreamed about making a giant oil refinery or something using sprues, would look pretty cool once painted.
There are so many uses, all mentioned above. But after all the years of saving these things, now I am very selective and only cut the desired sprue stock I tend to use. I had to stop being such a pack rat, saving everything. My basement was starting to look like a messy, hardware store, lumber yard, tool rental, auto dismantler and of coarse a pile of train stuff stacked on shelves and years of projects scattered about. I still have sections of our old layout that I salvaged years ago. The funny thing is, I could put my hands on anything I needed in just a few minutes.
Come on Bruce, you saw that in the latest issue of MRR that just arrived. You can use them for exhaust ducts up the outside of buildings, etc…100’s of uses. Check the latest issue…ohhh, I forgot, you did see it…it was a test right? LOL
Used that sprue for antennas by rotating over a candle and stretching. They fit very nicely onto the military vehicles of various scales once cool.
You can cut a batch to one length to build ladders rung by rung. A bit too tedious for me but it can be done.
Plastic Goop!
Hi Guys,
We all have a collection but if you run out come to the factory at our club. (GAC RR, Bethpage, NY)
We did use sprues on our railroad. We needed fish in our river and carved fish out of brownish sprue. My wife and several members said nice - HO whales?! You have to balance scale size with something that will be visible. Visitors quickly spot the fish in the river.
RutlandRay