Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

dude...it really is just Styrofoam and gasoline.... with benzene...that's awesome...

fenrir1997 wrote:dude...it really is just Styrofoam and gasoline.... with benzene...that's awesome...

You can use so many different things... including orange juice concentrate. Don't ask how I know

nectarprime wrote:

fenrir1997 wrote:dude...it really is just Styrofoam and gasoline.... with benzene...that's awesome...

You can use so many different things... including orange juice concentrate. Don't ask how I know

Is it because you saw the movie "Fight Club?"

Connor McKane wrote:Maybe I need a blendtech blender, powderize it and make "rubble/rocks/" for scenic bases?

"Will it blend?"

Connor McKane wrote:

nectarprime wrote:

fenrir1997 wrote:dude...it really is just Styrofoam and gasoline.... with benzene...that's awesome...

You can use so many different things... including orange juice concentrate. Don't ask how I know

Is it because you saw the movie "Fight Club?"

He knows this because Tyler knows this.

Connor McKane wrote:

nectarprime wrote:

fenrir1997 wrote:dude...it really is just Styrofoam and gasoline.... with benzene...that's awesome...

You can use so many different things... including orange juice concentrate. Don't ask how I know

Is it because you saw the movie "Fight Club?"

Is it really in that movie? lol. Nah, we used to do it when we were kids.

I coulda' sworn that napalm was petroleum and palm oil.

I don't know what gasoline is, is it the stuff you put in cars and stuff? Then it is the american term for petroleum.

Yes, gasoline = petroleum.
It's one of the things we do to handicap people who would dare leave to travel the rest of the world.

Usually the only ones who know what a gram is are those that buy drugs.

If you heat up a spiece of sprue in the middle with a ligter and pull each side of it it will create a really thing perfet string of sprue that if the perfect size for making ciggerets and cigars for troups, looks great on orks.

I would not normally point this out, but while we are getting into semantics...Technically petroleum and gasoline are not synonymous, even though some people use them that way. Petroleum is the raw material and gasoline/petrol are petroleum distillates. as are kerosene, benzene, diesel oil, etc.

You have to love this thread. So far we've hand discussions on:

Melting plastics
Gasoline vs petroleum
the effects of melting plastic on humans
The Geneva convention
Napalm
blenders
and Fight club!

Hang on a sec...

Bacon.

Congratulations. Your chest hair just grew a half-inch thanks to this thread.

agh, damn it someone beat me to the fight club referance lol

I tryed burning some sprue once and it was all black and smelt bad :(

winnertakesall wrote:Doesn't melt down well at all, it is thermosetting plastic which means that as it was done under immense heat and pressure, it's chemical state has changed and will no longer melt, only burn.

Except it isn't. It's a reusable thermoplastic, and you are spreading misinformation.

I've melted plastic sprue and used it to make very small stuff like skulls and rivets, it's much quicker than green stuff and has better definition when moulded.

I haven't been able to mould anything bigger than skulls because of the pressure required to force the plastic into the mould, and the fact that the plastic sets very quickly. To mould larger objects requires a machine that can do injection moulding, and usually a metal mould that has to be cut. Obviously this is super expensive which is why only a large company like GW can afford to do it.

Smacks wrote:

winnertakesall wrote:Doesn't melt down well at all, it is thermosetting plastic which means that as it was done under immense heat and pressure, it's chemical state has changed and will no longer melt, only burn.

Except it isn't. It's a reusable thermoplastic, and you are spreading misinformation.

I've melted plastic sprue and used it to make very small stuff like skulls and rivets, it's much quicker than green stuff and has better definition when moulded.

I haven't been able to mould anything bigger than skulls because of the pressure required to force the plastic into the mould, and the fact that the plastic sets very quickly. To mould larger objects requires a machine that can do injection moulding, and usually a metal mould that has to be cut. Obviously this is super expensive which is why only a large company like GW can afford to do it.

Do you have a source for this information? I'm almost positive that the plastic they use is a 2 part mix, that becomes solid once mixed.

Sprue won't conveniently go liquid for pouring into molds. For reasons of safety and inevitable frustration, don't even try it. That said, heat does soften the plastic to the point that it can be deformed without burning it, if you're careful. Heating and stretching styrene sprue is a trick that's been used by military modelers for decades (I've seen it recommended dozens of times in modeling books from the 70s, 80s, and more recently).

Even I've managed some simple "squash casting" (heat sprue end until soft, jam it against a shallow one-piece mold) using GW sprue and baked polymer clay molds. It takes a bit of care and patience to heat the plastic evenly and without burning it, then the molding has to be fast and forceful, as the material cools quickly enough that you'll start losing potential definition due to surface hardening and elasticity almost instantly.

I'd have to play around with different types of parts a bit more before making a final judgment, but I currently don't consider the results worthwhile, compared to the effort involved (probably due to my methods more than the material's limitations).

Most of my sprue gets broken down for later use - long straights get the "twigs" nipped off so that they can serve as internal support for scratchbuilds, or get cleaned up for visible trim or slicing into bricks, and the rest gets chopped up for rubble (nothing fancy, here - I just use a pair of end-nippers). If my rubble container is full, the unusable bends and nubbins get tossed.

For me, it's a good balance - cutting the frames down into parts saves significantly on storage space (and neatness - straights can be rubber-banded together or tossed in a parts box, rubble fills a small Tupperwear container or jar), the parts gleaned are actually handy, and the "wasted" material is a reasonably small portion of the total.

nectarprime wrote:Do you have a source for this information? I'm almost positive that the plastic they use is a 2 part mix, that becomes solid once mixed.

Did you even read my post?

If you're positive that it's a thermosetting plastic, then I guess I must have been wrong.

I'll be sure and pass that information along to the skulls and rivets that I moulded from it, as they where clearly ignorant of this fact.

Smacks wrote:

nectarprime wrote:Do you have a source for this information? I'm almost positive that the plastic they use is a 2 part mix, that becomes solid once mixed.

Did you even read my post?

If you're positive that it's a thermosetting plastic, then I guess I must have been wrong.

I'll be sure and pass that information along to the skulls and rivets that I moulded from it, as they where clearly ignorant of this fact.

I work in industrial plastics and know about the methods. I'm taking it by your rude attitude that you don't have a source and just made that up.

Obviously plastic melts when heat is applied, but I highly doubt they melt down plastic and inject it into their molds.

I work in industrial plastics and know about the methods. I'm taking it by your rude attitude that you don't have a source and just made that up.

I'm not privy to GWs industrial secrets. All I know is their plastic is some kind of extruded polystyrene... Which is a thermoplastic. Though I'm sure you already know that seeing as you 'work in industrial plastics'.

And I'm not rude, I told you that I have softened it and reshaped it. Why do I need an additional source? You're the one accusing me of lying and making stuff up, even though I have no vested interest in misleading you.

Obviously plastic melts when heat is applied, but I highly doubt they melt down plastic and inject it into their molds.

Actually I heard that is exactly what they do. They receive the plastic as pellets, melt them down and inject them into the moulds. And no I don't have a source other than what I've read on the forum.

If the sprue is Polystyrene, then it isn't a thermosetting plastic, it's just a thermoplastic (or thermo-softening plastic).

This means that the issue isn't in whether or not it melts, because it does, but as to the method of how people are heating the plastic. I'm gonna go ahead and assume most are using an open flame, which won't due very well.

If somebody wants to melt it, I'd have to suggest baking it. Nice even heat distribution, no flame, higher temperatures than a lighter or candle. As for molding it afterwards, I've no idea. It would be a hot liquid material which would cool quickly, making it difficult to to mold unless using a 1 or 2 part mold created from something that will not melt or disfigure from heat.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polystyrene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoplastic
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermosetting_polymer

No ranting here, just trying to give my 2 cents. I learned a little in Chemistry, might as well apply it every once in awhile

every plastic factory regrinds their sprues and melts them back into the process. Plastic recyclers grind your pop bottles and milk jugs into shavings and remelt them. They have a lot of expensive equipment though that lets them melt it at juuust the right temperature and it won't flow into molds well at all. Injection molding is done with presses that squeeze the molten plastic into steel molds at very high pressure.
Can it be done in theory - yes. Will you do it in your garage? Not bloody likely.
I found it interesting that one maker of plastic miniatures (I don't recall who it was) offered an exchange program where they gave model discounts for old sprue to recycle. I gather the program was a failure for one reason or another, when I found out about it it was months behind and nobody knew if it was still going.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Do you have a source for this information? I'm almost positive that the plastic they use is a 2 part mix, that becomes solid once mixed.

Negative, the plastic comes in small little pellets that get vacuumed into a screw extruder, melted, then pressed into massive steel molds. The 2 part mix would be for casting resin parts
As a sort of source cause 5 minutes on google didn't find very much info, I used to take all of my company's scrap plastic here to be shredded, remelted, and extruded into new pelletshttp://www.plasticrecyclingtech.com/

I have tried this once many years ago, melting cut up sprue in a paint brush cleaner that has MEK in it (methyl ethyl ketone = nasty stuff) and then pouring it into a flat bottom glass dish.
After ONLY 6 months it had solidified into grey plastic, it appears to be a bit more brittle than before.

Bugbait out