my brother is starting on a project of scratch building a warehouse. he is planing to use sheet styrene for parts and i wanted to know a lil more about purchaseing it since i have never boughent any, i’ve always just used scraps.
we were looking at the local hobby shop but a small sheet of it seemed kinda on the expensive side. i remembered a while back some one had said something about buying it in bigger sheets at plastic suplyers or something like that. I wanted to know if there is another name it may go by or something b/c both of the plastic suplyers buy us dont have it listed on their online data bases. also what is a good thickness to get? we want something that will be strong enough, but easy enough to cut.
any help would be greatly appreaciated.
thanks, matt
Buy a sheet of .040 or .060 white styrene. Its sold by plastics suppliers and by companies that make signs. If there isn’t a plastics place in your area (yellow pages) try a sign company.
You want styrene in because it will bond or “glue” easily.
Dave H.
On the other hand Evergreen and perhaps others make styrene that is molded or extruded to look like corrugated steel – which might be better suited to your warehouse project. If what you are looking for is perfectly smooth styrene then, yes, buying it in hobby shop quantities and sizes can get pricey. Sometimes one is lucky at swap meets to pick up the stored supply of a scratch builder. Also a friend of mine who is a truck driver does some dumpster diving where he delivers and some industries toss out huge quantities of perfectly good styrene – in particular he found a batch that had an advertisement printed on it and the printer goofed – but the other side was pristine.
Dave Nelson
Also check with Rix Products/Pike Stuff. They sell kits that require doors and windows to be cut, so you can configure the buildings the way you want. They are fairly inexpensive, also. Their website shows good pictures and gives details about each kit.
Tim
Tim, Do you have that website, I’m interested in checking that out.
Noah
I have seen people build incredible buildings using ‘For Sale’ signs and political candidate signs. The styrene is easy to cut and requires a little bit of reinforcing but you can’t beat the price - especially right after an election…
Noah,
Rix homepage
www.rixproducts.com
They have links to Pikestuff and Smalltown USA, which are part of the company. From what people tell me, they have really nice utility pole kits also.
Thanks alot, I’ll have to go check that out.
Noah