Working With Styrene Sheets

[Horrorshow]

Good day everyone.

 I just purchased some styrene sheets, any tips for cutting, shaping, sanding ect.

How to get perfectly round circles…

[Tom Geiger]

You asked for tips on working with plastic sheets.. I love this old Jeep with a fabricated body. And it’s all straight lines!

Step One- measure off your project. Then cut and assemble panels from cardboard. You have no real investment here, and you may have to do  it several times. Save the expensive plastic sheet stock!

Once you are happy with your cardboard mock-up, take it apart and use the individual pieces for templates to cut the plastic sheet!

Hope this helps!

[glue fumes]

Evergreen Styrene, has a good book on working with Styrene.

[NOBLNG]

First, get a cutting matt if you don’t have one. Then a nice wide steel ruler  for guiding straight cuts. You can use a scoring tool or the back side of a hobby knife for thicker styrene. Almost any cut won’t be perfectly square….so a large flat file can be used to square it up if necessary. A set of hole punches work best for perfectly round holes and discs. And like Tom says, cardboard templates are your friend.

[Ace-Garageguy]

For larger circles, use a standard compass with a cutting blade instead of a pencil lead.

You don't need to cut all the way through. Just "score" the circle several times and snap the center out.

You can also buy dedicated circle cutters for even larger work.

[Horrorshow]

Thanks everyone!??

[TarheelRick]

 

Where did you find these punches. I have a set of the Harbor Freight ones, that I have had for several years.

[NOBLNG]

2 hours ago, TarheelRick said:

Where did you find these punches. I have a set of the Harbor Freight ones, that I have had for several years.

The smaller Art Minds ones are from Michaels (leather working section).  The larger ones I believe are from Princess Auto.

[Bainford]

It's worth mentioning that Evergreen sheets .020" and thinner are easily cut with scissors, and even .030" with a good sturdy pair of scissors. It really speeds up rough cutting of pieces to be trued with files and/or sandpaper afterwards.