styrene wraps

jgoldader · Post by **jgoldader** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 8:47 am

Hi all,

I'm trying to wrap 0.01" styrene sheet around a plastic form (not styrene--made out of the ends of two soft plastic medicine bottles butted together and glued) to make a cylinder, and having little luck. I can't get the wrap tight, it looks terrible, the solvent melts through, etc.

The cylinder will end up being about 7 cm long by 3 cm diameter, so it's not too big or small.

Can anybody give hints? There's got to be some way to manage when Plastruct doesn't make the right size tubes.

Thanks!
Jeff

USSARCADIA · Post by **USSARCADIA** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 10:59 am

Have you tried looking for some ABS pipe from a home center or plumbing supply?

jgoldader · Post by **jgoldader** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 11:52 am

USSARCADIA wrote:Have you tried looking for some ABS pipe from a home center or plumbing supply?

Ayup. It's the "almost, but not quite right" problem.

I did find a wooden dowel that's the right size a few minutes ago at the local Home Depot, so I'll sand/prime/sand/prime and use that. But I'd still really like to get a handle on doing wraps, since I can't always count on getting the right size, and I don't have a lathe.

Jeff

Newbie Doobie · Post by **Newbie Doobie** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 12:16 pm

Why don't you just glue both of these to a wooden dowel for support? Make sure that the dowel touches the bottom of each medicine bottle,so that there's no wobbliness. Then,glue each one to the dowel after you check the fit to make these butt together with the correct support. This will give you strength,and stability. Just put a drop of glue on each end of the wooden dowel,then around the collars,and fit them together. I'd use Elmers' white glue so that if you make a mistake,you can fix it!

Chacal · Post by **Chacal** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 3:37 pm

I would go for something similar to the wooden dowel above, but with a styrene sheet triangular prism — triangular because that's a basic structural shape: it won't flex or bend as much as pretty much anything else (when you see the arms of construction cranes, they're triangular prisms—made of tubes for weight reduction). So, cut three rectangles as long as you need (close to the 70mm overall length) and as wide as possible so that a triangular prism of them will fit inside the medicine bottles. A good idea would be to let them overshoot, like this, so you can play a bit to fit them best. From then on, it's the same as the dowel method above.

Umi_Ryuzuki · Post by **Umi_Ryuzuki** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:43 pm

Wrap your styrene around a slightly smaller wooden dowel, then
rubber band it and leave it over night. That should put a curl into
it and make it easier to form.

max142 · Post by **max142** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 6:52 pm

I've done this before: wrap .1 mm around a brass tube, hold in place with tape and immerse this into boiling water for a couple of seconds. The drop the rod into a sink of cold water to stiffen the plastic.

Post by **TER-OR** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:02 pm

You can do as Umi says - or you can roll it repeatedly to soften it. I'll do that with rod to make it hold in place over complex curves, too.

dhanners · Post by **dhanners** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:16 pm

As a card modeler who has to do this kind of thing often (except with paper, not styrene) you could roll it. Lay your piece of plastic on a computer mousepad or a similar type of foam pad and then use a length of brass tubing to roll over the plastic in the direction of the curl you want to impart. The brass tube should be smaller than what you want the rolled plastic to be, and you should roll the plastic as if you were rolling dough with a rolling pin.

jgoldader · Post by **jgoldader** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:25 pm

Thanks, everybody, for the great ideas--I'll definitely try them!

Jeff

Joseph C. Brown · Post by **Joseph C. Brown** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 12:23 pm

Have you looked at the tutorials over at lyzrdstomp.com? Wrapping styrene around medicine bottles and vitamin bottles to make sci-fi items?

http://www.lyzrdstomp.com/index.php?opt ... Itemid=120

3d-builder · Post by **3d-builder** » Sat Feb 28, 2009 6:29 pm

jgoldader wrote:Hi all,

I'm trying to wrap 0.01" styrene sheet around a plastic form (not styrene--made out of the ends of two soft plastic medicine bottles butted together and glued) to make a cylinder, and having little luck. I can't get the wrap tight, it looks terrible, the solvent melts through, etc.

The cylinder will end up being about 7 cm long by 3 cm diameter, so it's not too big or small.

Can anybody give hints? There's got to be some way to manage when Plastruct doesn't make the right size tubes.

Thanks!
Jeff

Jeff for the future of wooden dowels micro-mark has a nice tool that will make your in between sizes a reality.Not sure how big of a dowel you can start out with but check their catalog on line.

Also you can check plastic supply houses, they often sell acrylic rod and tubes in a tremendous amount of sizes.

You may have to use super glue if the plastic is so thin the solvent is eating through.

Regards,
Michael

Regards,
Michael

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