Working with styrene This versatile material is sturdy and easy to work with/Bob Walker I
usually try for a snappy opening paragraph to kind of rope everyone into reading the rest of the column.
The School of Model Railroad Column Writing teaches us that much of what is written on a subject so esoteric as scratchbuilding models is pretty dry. It’s not like writing about the shenani- gans in Washington, D.C., which can be fairly lively. It’s more like trying to de- scribe your grandmother’s cinnamon rolls. Someday, I’ll tell you a story about those and how they got me my first cab ride, but for now I will settle in on a discussion of how to use the simplest material around for building structure models.
It’s styrene, also
known as just plain plastic. Styrene, actually polystyrene in our
case, is derived from oil. More specifi- cally, it evolves from the gas produced by the crude oil refining process. The styrene we are most familiar with is used for injection molding to produce a wide variety of locomotives, cars, struc- tures and details. It is the most com- mon material in the hobby. This type of plastic comes to the manufacturer in the form of small white pellets that of- ten need the addition of a colorant. It is melted to a gummy elastic form in a truly huge machine and then injected into a large die into which is intricately cut the negative shapes of the models we are so familiar with. As an example, the machine that makes Accurail freight cars is over 20 feet long and weighs better that four tons. It melts the styrene to 475 degrees F. and rams it into the steel dies with tremendous force, so much force that the machine closes the die halves with 75 tons of pressure. When that pres- sure is slightly inadequate, or the die is slightly worn, thin bits of styrene pro- trude rudely from the part. This is known as flash. This beast of a ma- chine also makes our electric utility company very happy.
The other form of styrene, about
which I will expound at greater length, is the strips, sheets, and shapes we find available to us from the likes of Ever- green Scale Models, Plastruct, JMD, N Scale Architect and Volmer. A quick check of the Walthers catalog will re- veal a mind blowing variety of materi- als. My preference is Evergreen, simply because I am familiar with it. I keep a lot (I mean a lot) of sizes and shapes on hand. I do, however, make a lot of use
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Scratchbuilder’s Corner
of the embossed brick and masonry sheets offered by many American and European companies. These few pages will give you a general idea of what this building material can do for you. If you are the least bit interested in pur- suing further information, regardless of your experience or skill level, I high-
ly recommend Bob Hayden’s book Styrene Modeling. It will provide much more information, and in greater depth, than I can in only these few pages. Walthers stock number 269-14 is $16.95 and worth every cent. It will tell you everything you need to know about creating fine models in this medium. I am older than dirt and know everything, but this book taught this old dog a metric ton of new tricks. My copy is so ragged and dog-eared as to be almost unreadable. Like any building material, styrene is more appropriate for some projects
PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
Styrene walls may be stiffer than other materials (top) but they should still be braced. These braces were cut by scoring and snapping the styrene. For scratchbuilding wooden struc- tures, use jigs made of styrene that wood glue does not adhere to (above).
SEPTEMBER 2013
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