Working with clear styrene

[sbaxter]

I have one of those projects where success requires a "found item" in the proper shape. It has taken me nearly 15 years, but I've finally found said item. Problem is, the piece I found is made of clear styrene. Naturally, it isn't perfect as-is. For one thing, it has a couple of "fins" that will need to be sawn away, and then it has to be sanded where those are removed. The piece is hollow at least part of the way (it gets progressively smaller in diameter along its length). I can presumably shore up the strength where it is hollow with some epoxy on the inside. Where it is not hollow, I wonder if I could carefully drill down the center to make room for a metal rod ...

Are there any tricks for making clear styrene easier to work without cracking? I suppose worst case would be to get it as close as I can to what I need and then have someone cast it, but I'd still be concerned about the strength of the thinner, smaller portion ...

Qapla'

SSB

[Andrew Gorman]

Before you start cutting glue in a lot of reinforcement on the inside- thick pieces of sprue at the base of the fins, discs every 1/2 inch or so on round sections- I use poker chips, tiddly winks and car wheels. Where that doesn't work just make a Hong Kong bamboo scaffold of sprue on the inside. The has worked very well for me.

[Tankmodeler]

Clear styrene is fundamentally more brittle than coloured stryene, the clear stuff is close to pure while the coloured stuff has numerous additives, only one of which is the colour.

I'd reinforce fist and drill second. Also avoid putting too much force oni it while cutting/drilling.

That said, I have made a number of things using thin clear styrene and broken none of them, so a light touch is what you need to keep in mind. If the clearness of the object is not really needed, then even if it cracks, you can reglue it and sand smooth again, so you have a lot more leeway than someone doing mods to a canopy that they want to remain celar in the end.

Paul

[sbaxter]

Okay -- both of these replies echo much of what I had guessed would be true.

What I'm trying to create here are the engine finials for the N1 Naboo Starfighter -- sized for the Hasbro version, so the finials alone should be about five inches long. The toy comes with finials that are way too short by about 1.5 inches, and they're made of a rubbery material and there's no working with that stuff. But you see my dilemma -- these things are going to have to get quite thin on the aft end.

After about 15 years of looking, I found cheap dollar-store champagne flutes in clear styrene that have within them the correct shape. They are reinforced at the thin end with a couple of fins that form a triangle with the base. Those must be removed. I was hoping to drill down the length of the things to reinforce the pointy end as much as I can for the final piece, but I'm not sure how well I can do that by hand. One idea I had was to not try to push it too far and make myself crazy, but take it as far as I can with the thin portion and make the pointy end from a nail or something epoxied in place. I want to make it so that I can chuck the wide end into my drill for smoothing the thing, like a low-speed lathe. But I'd appreciate any further suggestions and insight on how to make this work.

Now, if I could find RC airplane prop spinners for the rounded cones in the front of the engines -- the toy's version of these is the same rubbery junk as is used for the finials. I don't know whether rigid plastic or aluminum spinners with a 23 mm base actually exist, however ...

Qapla'

SSB

[sbaxter]

Talking to one of the RC guys at the local Hobbytown yesterday -- and my best Google-fu -- has me convinced that RC aircraft spinners don't exist at the size I need. However, the head of the machine shop here at work offered to turn aluminum stock on a lathe to make the parts I need for that end of the engines. My only concern is that he just wants to base it on the existing part (which does have the correct size and shape), rather than doing it CNC -- even though I drew the correct profile for it years ago and saved it as an AutoCAD file. The guy is an expert, but I'm concerned that he won't be able to make the pair of them identical without CNC. I guess I'll find out.

He also thinks he can turn the finials, but I didn't have anything to show him at the time -- just a verbal description. I had previously been told that it might not work to turn something that had to be as thin as those would get. I'm not ruling any options out at this point.

I have learned that two or three years ago, Hasbro released a second version of this ship. The updated version sports some improvements -- the canopy slides forward to open as in the films, rather than the flip forward style of the original toy, and features a significantly more detailed cockpit interior than those I have; they added the two control yokes under the instrument cluster and control panels to either side of the pilot. The newer version also has some things they made worse -- the engine cones are now an incorrect, more rounded shape (and are still rubbery), and the droid socket is enlarged so that an astromech action figure can be used, rather than the built-in R2-D2 dome that was on the original. The latter feature may make more actual sense, but it doesn't match the film. I'm considering picking one up from eBay if I can find one at a decent price so I can cannibalize the better cockpit detail.

Qapla'

SSB