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Hi, I'm currently working on some armor for my imperial guardsmen and also considering taking a shot at scratch building some large vehicle or knight. I've found a few places online that sell plasticard/sheet styrene, in .010" and .060" thicknesses that I considered buying. But then I realized that I had no experience with plasticard and decided to seek advice. What are good thicknesses of plasticard for making small armor plates for infantry, and for making large hulls and the like for vehicles?

The .060" stuff is just a hair shy of 1/16" (which would be .0625" , quite good for scratch building tanks. I like to use it because it's very sturdy yet still fairly easy to cut, but you could get away with going as thin as .040". The .010" is very thin, probably too thin even for infantry. I'd recommend .020".

0.60 is good for scratchbuilding, like Arstahd said. 0.80 is good but is a little too think to easily cut and snap with an xacto blade alone. 0.10 is good for surface details but is too thin for plating, which would do better in 0.20.

(You knew this had to be coming next!)

Can someone recommend a good online site (in the US) for purchasing plasticard in various thicknesses and textures?

Thanks!

any local hobby town has that in stock Just go back too the model train section and look around

Alpharius, you can order direct from the two main US manufacturers:
http://www.plastruct.com/
http://www.evergreenscalemodels.com/

And for a wider range of product, I've found Great Models Webstore to carry both lines and all sorts of other modeling goodies, just about anything you can think of. Think of them like your very well stocked local model shop, online. Though if you have a very well stocked local model shop, check them out, you'll get your stuff faster.

I found a site that sells sheet styrene for very cheap, the US Plastic co sells huge sheets direct, at about $6 for 2280 square inches of .020 thickness styrene sheet and $18 for the same amount of .060 thickness styrene sheet. Also is there a problem with it being "High Impact" styrene sheet? I was thinking about ordering a sheet of .020 from there since I found a good ebay auction for the .060 thickness sheet of black styrene.

ebay auction:
cgi.ebay.com/10-sheets-Black-Polystyrene-styrene-060-x-16-x-24_W0QQitemZ7530009918QQihZ017QQcategoryZ36352QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

US plastic co
http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog_name=USPlastic&category_name=76&product_id=3008

Heh, I bought 20 sheets of that black stuff from that guy a year ago. Great deal, I recommend it. I've used 5 sheets so far, it goes quicker than I expected. It's a shame that most of the cost goes to shipping.

This eBay store has pretty good prices, and free shipping, making it a great deal. 

cgi.ebay.com/Plain-White-Styrene-Sheets-10-sheets-060-6-x12_W0QQitemZ230006309036QQihZ013QQcategoryZ19157QQcmdZViewItem

The USPlastics store seems like a gamble since the closest thing to the plasticard most of us are used to is what they list as
high impact polystyrene and, as you noticed, it comes in ridiculously huge sheets (40" x 72"?!? WTF?). While you can glue
disparate types of plastic (ie: ABS to styrene), you either need glue formulated for it or use superglue (which creates a
weaker bond). Aside from some of Plastruct and Evergreen's specificly noted ABS, vinyl and acrilic, their styrene sheets,
shapes and rods definitely work fine with regular liquid cement and bond with the same plastics GW and other scale model
manufacturers use.

Posted By nyarlathotep667 on 12/29/2006 7:24 PM
it comes in ridiculously huge sheets (40" x 72"?!? WTF?).

The gimundo sheets are for architecture models/samples.

At times, you can find sheets dirt cheap from art and architecture suppliers.

Ah, that makes complete sense. Those sheets are pretty cheap for their size, but I bet you'd pay hell for packaging & shipping if you didn't order in bulk.

Full scratchbuild Hive Spire?

I've come to the realization that I don't need that much sheet as I'm not scratch building an Emperor Class Battleship, so I'm scaling down my order and buying Plastruct sheets from Hobbylinc.com.

How much are you planning on using? A 12 x 24 sheet of .060" costs around $9 at a shop. This will give you enough material for two tanks. If you want to build more than that, you're better off getting the 10 sheets for $18, the cost of two sheets at the shop.

I have been using plasticard for years and sooner or later you will use any thickness from the paper thin to the 2mm thick. The most useful however is probably around 1mm which is around 40 thou and down to around 60 thou or so. This is the most useful for me because it has the best balance between strength (not too floppy to stand up on its own) and easy to work ? score and snap works a treat. Even if it seems a bit flimsy on its own to build up a vehicle once you have several pieces supporting each other it is surprisingly rigid. However it might eventually suffer from the starved whale effect ? shrinking in between the supports so for the basic hull something thicker might be a good idea. However when I have wanted to capture this effect I have never managed to do so.
You can curve the thinner stuff quite easily, for the thicker stuff you can persuade it to hold a curve by tying it around a bit of pipe and dunking it in hot water.
Have a look at the textured plasticard and styrene sections as well ? if you have not seen these before you will find them eye opening. Very, very useful indeed for scratchbuilding. The best range is probably made by Evergreen.

Posted By Arstahd on 12/30/2006 9:06 AM
How much are you planning on using? A 12 x 24 sheet of .060" costs around $9 at a shop. This will give you enough material for two tanks. If you want to build more than that, you're better off getting the 10 sheets for $18, the cost of two sheets at the shop.

At the hobbylinc store you can get 3 sheets of 7x12, which is almost the same amount as a 12x24 sheet, for only $4.29, making it about half as expensive as from whatever shop you are referencing. I decided not to get the ebay auction because I really did not need that massive an amount of plasticard and $15 shipping was rather ridiculous...

I checked out the site you mentioned. You seem to have forgotten about shipping costs.

3 sheets white 7" x 12" (252 sq in) costs $4.29 + $6.49 S&H = $10.78

I also found these for sale:

2 sheets of white 8" x 21" (336 sq in) costs $7.49 + $6.79 S&H = $14.79

2 sheets of black 8" x 21" (336 sq in) costs $9.29+ $6.69 S&H = $15.98


The black stuff on eBay  costs $5.00 + $13.96 S&H = $18.96 for 3840 square inches. That's like buying the 3 sheet lot you mentioned and then getting 42 additional sheets for an extra $8.

I don't know what you're building, but I'll wager that you'll run through those 3 sheets quicker than you realize and end up needing to buy more.

We shall see, though I really doubt I will use up all the plasticard I bought, and if I do I'll just go and get some huge bulk shipment.

Posted By ph34r on 12/29/2006 6:07 PM
I found a site that sells sheet styrene for very cheap, the US Plastic co sells huge sheets direct, at about $6 for 2280 square inches of .020 thickness styrene sheet and $18 for the same amount of .060 thickness styrene sheet. Also is there a problem with it being "High Impact" styrene sheet? I was thinking about ordering a sheet of .020 from there since I found a good ebay auction for the .060 thickness sheet of black styrene.

ebay auction:
cgi.ebay.com/10-sheets-Black-Polystyrene-styrene-060-x-16-x-24_W0QQitemZ7530009918QQihZ017QQcategoryZ36352QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItem

Heh. I just ordered 40 sheets from the guy at this auction:

(its the same guy in the auction ph34r listed)

Its only costing me less than $56 for forty 16"x24" sheets of .060" thick plasticard. (shipping sadly is two thirds of the total cost)

A HUGE deal. Mind boggling actually. It equates to four 4'x6' sheets of plasticard. Perfect for wargaming....

I do feel sorry for the poor postman that is delivering the parcel though, it weighs 40lbs.