Trying to mimic "high-impact" and "rubbery" plastic used in toys

[MillenniumFalsehood]

So I've been googling this, but I'm not sure I'm getting the right information. At least, the info I've been getting has been confusing, to say the least. I'm wanting to make a toy starship, right down to the kind of plastic used, but lacking an injection molding machine, I was thinking I could find a resin that was similar to the stuff they used to make toys. However, I checked at least a dozen sites, and kept getting very basic information. Nothing about the material properties of both the hard material the toy body is usually made from or the softer stuff for more "pointy" bits. Could someone with experience in the toy industry possibly help me out with the material properties?

I wish I still had access to my school's engineering lab for stuff like this...

[Zubie]

Have you considered wood?

Bit heavy if thrown, but could be quite sturdy. You do probably need a lathe and a jig saw.

see:https://www.shelf-awareness.com/issue.h ... 442#m43549

There was someone who was a member here who would build wooden ships in the ST:TOS universe using things like round dowels for warp nacelles and wood blocks for structure, but I can't find the blog at this time. It might have been a facebook page actually.

Also there are some wooden ST toy ships out there.

[MillenniumFalsehood]

The thing is, I'm wanting to make a Star Wars toy circa 1995 or so, and my idea is to build a master out of styrene, then cast the parts in resin to give them the proper tint (including those weird black specks floating around in the gray) with the poky bits cast in that rubbery plastic they used for safety. So wood or anything else is out of the question.

[Rocketeer]

Sounds like you might want to look into urethane rubber. I used it for molds once, and it was much stiffer than the usual silicone mold materials.

[naoto]

https://youtu.be/bPBb_BeGbIU

[Kylwell]

IIRC Both Reynolds Advanced Materials & Smooth-On off technical bulletins that will tell you their cured hardness, flexibility, etc. Then roll over and get some specs on HDPE and MDPE and you're set. Excepting no one seems to use the same units so you'll most likely spend some time doing math.

[MillenniumFalsehood]

I don't mind a little math. I'm not sure that HDPE or MDPE are used in toys, at least not the Hasbro/Kenner ones I'm trying to mimic. The hard plastic responds to plastic welder, so I think it might be ABS. I'm not sure what the soft, more rubbery plastic is made from, though.

[seam-filler]

The hard plastic is, as you suspect, almost certainly ABS. the softer, more rubbery, plastic is probably polybutylene terephthalate or, much less likely polyethylene. Both ABS and polybutylene terephthalate (PT) are thermoplastic polymers.

I don't know of any thermoset plastics (resins) that behave like PT, but they may be out there.