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Laminating styrene sheet, glue ?


Pig of the Week

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Will be, in the near future, doing much laminating layers of plastic card...Tamiya liquid cement and the like will tend to warp and distort everything, and be problematic I'm told.

..interested in hearing any suggestions for a suitable adhesives ( and advice ! ) for multi layering plastic card / styrene sheet... 👍

Edited by Pig of the Week
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What are you building? When I altered the profile on my Vanguard nose, I employed a mix of card, scrap and Milliput

 

49000954343_7ec6032915_b.jpg 49000954448_5704a779b6_b.jpg

49146836872_1839f7c816_b.jpg

 

That avoided problems with too much glue and plastic and having to slather big glops (technical term🤣) of Milliput.

 

HTH

 

Trevor

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I think I would try a contact spray adhesive - there's a whole range with various strengths. But it would get round the even coverage problem

 

The problem with poly glues is that they are designed to melt the plastic so unless you are using quite thick laminations, some visible distortion is likely.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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Another photo on my Vanguard conversion shows the melted plastic area where I was rather vigorous with the poly glue! Contact adhesive I think is the way to go as suggested above.

 

Good luck.

 

Trevor

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2 hours ago, ckw said:

I think I would try a contact spray adhesive - there's a whole range with various strengths. But it would get round the even coverage problem

 

The problem with poly glues is that they are designed to melt the plastic so unless you are using quite thick laminations, some visible distortion is likely.

 

Cheers

 

Colin

Most contact adhesives are solvent based, they're liable to distort the plastic before you've even got it together, test on some scrap before committing to a model.

A few years ago I built a transport box for a small model ship out of corrugated cardboard stuck together with contact adhesive, when I got home and opened the box the model had gone all Salvador Dali just from the fumes from the glue 😞

 

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4 hours ago, Dave Swindell said:

Most contact adhesives are solvent based, they're liable to distort the plastic before you've even got it together, test on some scrap before committing to a model.

That's a fair point - I was thinking more of the type of thing we use for mounting artwork and the like which need to be safe

 

Cheers

 

Colin

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  • 3 weeks later...

Why must you use plastic?

 

Thin MDF plus PVA glue might suit some of those applications very well. So too might aluminium lithoplate stuck down with two-part epoxy arildite glue. Heavy cardboard can also be useful. 
 

Just saying!

👍

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 29/03/2021 at 11:08, Pig of the Week said:

any suggestions for a suitable adhesives ( and advice ! ) for multi layering plastic card / styrene sheet...

 You can laminate plastic card using poly cement if you are careful with the number of layers that you choose to laminate with, from my fairly limited experience - 2 layers will pretty much always warp (sooner or later) regardless of how thick the card is, but 3 layers will be much more stable simply because the two outer layers tend to counteract each other, so 3 layers of thick card laminated with poly cement can be very stable, and if you need even more layers then it would be best to skip 4 layers and work with 5 layers, sounds crazy I know, but it does kinda work.

 

 Having said all of that, It's best to just use epoxy resins and ca glues, though you might have to get creative sometimes with regards to how you get ca into a joint, it really all depends on how big the pieces of plastic card that you are working with are, plus with epoxy resins and ca glues it's probably best to key the surfaces as well, with fine sandpaper.

 

 For laminating full size sheets together I really haven't got a clue, never done it, but I'm guessing that your not talking about laminating full size brand new sheets of card? are you?

 

 Matt

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No not big bits just small sections say 1 in x  2 ½ins type thing, I have stuck a few bits with tamiya liquid cement just 2ply, that worked ok without curling up, but i do see the logic of 3 ply or another odd number , makes perfect sense !

I'll bear the above in mind certainly 👍

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When you do figure out the glue you're going to use, make sure you clamp the lamination setup between some cauls to ensure they remain flat. 

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For small pieces as you propose, liquid styrene cement or MEK should work, provided you don’t apply too much. I’ve used Testors liquid to laminate small pieces without problems both on models and off. But when laminating off the model I usually weight the lamination with a heavy book or clamp it to prevent warping.

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  • 1 year later...

Throughout this post I cannot remember seeing any mention of what actual thickness plastic card the laminations were being made up to.

Thinking out of the model making box a bit, how about looking up local commercial plastics suppliers who may well carry thicker sheet  material plastics. Alternatively there are specialist suppliers of materials including  plastics to the educational sector who carry and supply  a variety of things for schools and colleges design and technology departments.

Far better to get material of the right thickness of you can rather than using up sheets and adhesives in laminating.

Edited by Noel Smith
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  • 3 months later...

A bit late to the party, on this one. But for thin styrene sheet 0.25 and 0.5mm I use D-Limonene. It has a much slower working time and doesn't warp the thin plastic.

 

I usually laminate 0.5mm in three layers leaving them overnight between two sheets of glass. I have several part built railway models that have been around for 5 years or more without any signs of delaminating.

I do demonstrations of my Silhouette Cutter at several Model Railway shows each year and take them along as demo pieces.

Edited by Rob Pulham
Typo
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