Styrene, aluminium.

[Capt.Sandbar]

Hello,
I have been using quite a bit of aluminiun sheet on my cargo ship model but have been reading up on styrene sheet and its uses on this forum. I decided that I had to have some, so on our recent bi-annual trip to the big city I purchased a 4 foot square sheet of 0.7mm styrene - NZD5.00, or about USD4.00 for the piece. Whilst I can certainly appreciate its benefits, I think that I prefer to use the aluminium - it glues and paints well, is easy to work, more rigid and best of all, free. Since we only use small pieces, most sheetmetal works will invite you to rummage around in their scrap bins for offcuts.
I wonder if I am in the minority in my preference for aluminium?

Chris

[Mike Reading]

Hi Chris

I'm with you on prefering to use thin aluminium sheet - called litho, as used in the printing industry.

What I like is that being a metal it looks a lot more realistic on the model. It can also be quite easily shaped. Using a former I've even made parts like doors.

Don't get me wrong plastic sheeting has it's uses but I'm not so sure when using bigger pieces of it laid/glued over something else. In my earlier days I tried sheeting a hull with plastic sheeting. At first it went well and looked good. But after a few months it started erupting in places. I'd cut out and make good these but then new ones appeared. In the end I gave up and scrapped that hull. I found out that the plastic was reacting with the solvent in the glue, and with the glue trapped between the plastic sheeting and the hull structure, there was no where for the solvent to vent. The plastic being the softer thus took the brunt of the forces.

Perhaps you could post some photos of your work for us to enjoy.
Mike

[Capt.Sandbar]

Hello Mike,
That is really bad luck about your hull needing to be replated, or whatever the modelling term is..
Attached a couple of photos as requested of the little coaster - still plenty of work to do, especially small and fiddly stuff which is not easy for a man with sausage-fingers. I am not a modeller, and the object of the exercise was that I wished to acquire a model of the vessel in which I began my seafaring career 40 + years ago. The actual model building was the unfortunate bit I had to go through in order to achieve that goal. However, I have to admit to becoming more that a little interested in the building process. Perhaps I'm a latent shipmodeller??

Chris

[Mike Reading]

A fine looking model - looks good - hope it has wetted your apetite to have a go at another ship model.

It was many years ago I had that catashrope, so plenty of water under the bridge since then.

Regards
Mike

[MareNostrum]

That's one impressive looking model to my eye, all modesty aside. I contemplating using either aluminum or brass sheet to get more realistic hull plating, rather than using styrene or scribing, although the final decision hasn't been made yet (still a ways off). One question, if using metal as an overlay, what type of adhesive do you use, cyanoacrylate? Does it matter what the underlying structure of the model is, styrene or wood (or whatever)?

Thanks.

[whytewolf]

For my HMCS SUMMERSIDE, I built the hull out of plywood bulkheads planked with balsa, and several coats of varnish. I then plated it with litho attached using 5 minute epoxy. I found that the epoxy didn't hold the plate tight enough, and during my subsequent smoothing and sanding with Bondo several plates let go and needed to be replaced. I've since switched to contact cement and have been very happy with how it's worked. That said, I've yet to use it on a full scale hull, but I plan on plating my HMCS ANNAPOLIS hull using litho glued to the vacformed styrene with contact cement. I don't expect to have any issues.

A note of warning though: if you're bonding something to really thin styrene, the contact cement can soften the styrene and cause bubbling if you're not careful. I've had this happen when bonding .010 styrene to plywood for ANNAPOLIS's engine room bulkheads.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Sean

[MareNostrum]

[Armstrong440]

As a reasonably experienced railway modeller, I can attest that styrene can be used to create just about any type of model. It can be laminated but, unlike wood and card which are porous and can "breathe", styrene is airtight and ventilation is vital.

There are stories of people who've built model closed vans (boxcars) as entirely sealed boxes, only to find a week, a month, a year or more later that they begin to distort. This is because a sealed styrene box can trap solvent fumes which have no way to escape and, very slowly, attack the plastic from the inside. The simple expedient of drilling a ventilation hole in the underside of the wagon prevents this from happening.

Sheet styrene can be laminated together with solvent, but again ventilation is required. Narrow pieces - maybe an inch or so wide - are no problem, but if you need to laminate larger surfaces then holes need to be drilled in the backing sheet to allow the solvent to escape. This is fine for something like a cabin structure or a ships hull, where the interior is generally not visible, but if you need both sides of the lamination to be visible then it's a little more difficult. And then the cabin itself will require ventilation holes to ensure you're not building a sealed box.

I have only ever used aluminium to build mechanical models, and then I've used nuts and bolts to secure parts together. I have an innate distrust of glues, having had a number of cyanoacrylate and epoxy joints fail on me. The vast majority of work in the model railway field uses styrene, card, wood, whitemetal or brass as building materials so solvents, contact adhesives, PVA and solder are my preferred joining methods. I know of people who happily superglue whitemetal models together but it's something I would never do, preferring low-temperature solder for the main work and reserving CA for the smallest of detail parts where soldering wasn't practical.

I guess it all boils down to what you're familiar with and what suits your way of working. Unless structural strength is paramount I'd say styrene can do anything that aluminium can, and it's more easily workable and suitable for fine detail. You just need to understand the medium and know how to use it, but that's true for any material. Plus you have to make sure you buy good quality styrene - there are different grades, some of which don't take to solvent glue as well as others. Four square feet of styrene for five dollars is very cheap: for such a sheet at today's prices (Oct 2012) I'd expect to pay about �15 or 30NZD for good-grade stuff.

If you have time, and the will, then play with styrene and see what it can do. Maybe indulge in a couple of magazines from other modelling fields to find out how they do things. But, personally, I don't think I'm going to be using aluminium for any kind of modelmaking in the forseeable future.

[Dave Wooley]

Hello,
I have been using quite a bit of aluminiun sheet on my cargo ship model but have been reading up on styrene sheet and its uses on this forum. I decided that I had to have some, so on our recent bi-annual trip to the big city I purchased a 4 foot square sheet of 0.7mm styrene - NZD5.00, or about USD4.00 for the piece. Whilst I can certainly appreciate its benefits, I think that I prefer to use the aluminium - it glues and paints well, is easy to work, more rigid and best of all, free. Since we only use small pieces, most sheetmetal works will invite you to rummage around in their scrap bins for offcuts.
I wonder if I am in the minority in my preference for aluminium?

Chris

I have been using Litho plate {aluminium sheet] for many years as a secondary finish. My present build HMS Daring has litho simply because styrene does not perform in the same way. a metal finish painted or not is a metal finish and I have found over the years Litho to be far more workable that styrene , although to be fair I work far more in styrene than litho .As for bonding one to the other I prepare cyanoacrylate metal it works well for me.
Dave Wooley

[Jon]

Will long pieces of sheet aluminum expand and contract alot with minor temperature changes?

[Dave Wooley]

Will long pieces of sheet aluminum expand and contract alot with minor temperature changes?

I have been using Litho plate {aluminium sheet] for many years as a secondary finish. My present build HM Daring has litho simply because styrene does not perform in the same way. a metal finish painted or not is a metal finish and I have found over the years Litho to be far more workable that styrene , although to be fair I work far more in styrene than litho .As for bonding one to the other I prefer cyanoacrylate metal it works well for me. : thumbs_up_1::wave_1:
Dave Wooley
.

[Mike Reading]

A couple of my ship models that are now some twenty plus years old have remained stable. Both have litho sheet plating the hulls and upper works. No cracks or splits have happened. So it seems to me that yes of course there is some expansion and contraction with temperature changes it is fairly uniform for the whole of the model. Plus which I use UHU to glue the litho in place. It's a bit more pliant in my view than cyno and the like.
Mike

[Fliger747]

When I was in High School, low some 50 years ago, I built a model of my dads WWII ship, USS Posidon, ARL 12. The hull was primarally from aluminum sheet, bonded to a wood base for the curve of the hull at the bilge. The superstructure was various materials such as Aluminum and Strathmore. It is quite amazing how well the ship has held up all these years. I like the Alloy as it can be bent to a position where it will stay, paints and works well. Current project is using a lot of styrene and plexiglass, but perhaps I'll do some alloy for a few parts I can think of, especially curved bulwarks.

Tom

[Diederick44]

ahoy , interesting topic here , i just love the litho since aluminium doesnt rust and is quite dureable with temperature changes . As far as glue goes i am using a contact adhesive that is waterproof to stick the litho to plywood . Superglue alone is useless no matter the brand...except if you add bicorbonate of soda to the superglue then it becomes super hard and is almost instant , no waiting time for it to cure but trust me it does have pro's and cons . Pro's is that the superglue mixture is almost instantly hard and bonds extremely well . Cons : keep your fingers out of the way mate or else its a trip to the hospital and the other con is that if your space is limited to work in then you struggle to add the bicorbonate soda fast enough and at the right place . But give it a bang if you want to and let me know what you gentlemen think