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.

I have a bunch of old sprues and was just wondering if there is any terrain or conversion applications for them before I throw them out. Does anyone know any?

I've seen a lot of people clip up sprue to make rubble bricks to decorate bases or terrain.

They can also be used as under support in scratchbuilds for areas that won't be seen but you need something a little more structural.

Plenty. Tossing them is no great loss, mind you, but sprues definitely have uses. As mentioned, you can chop/grind them up as rubble or use them as internal supports for styrene structures (or any structure, really, but they're most useful when you can use styrene cement - otherwise, something stiffer is usually preferable). You can also sand/file/scrape the flared edges square and slice off bricks. Leave the slices flared and they're perfect gold ingots for an objective marker. You can cut the nubs on straight sections flush and use them as girders. You can remove the nubs, again, and use them as cable covers (like you see in offices/computer labs, mounted to the walls). You can use them to make armatures for sculpting larger parts/models. The rounded corner sections could cap the corners on a round-edged door or wall, like a reinforcing steel bracket (especially good for bunkers). Squared off and streaked by coarse sandpaper, they'd make decent scale lumber (better to buy cheap balsa strips, in my opinion, but it would still work), too.

That's just a quick list off the top of my head - people have done far more than just that, but many go farther than I would, e.g. a Necron army made entirely from bits of sprue. Even that list is just what you can do with simple cutting and shaping - the list expands when you add heat and solvents into the equation. If carefully heated and stretched, you can make thin plastic wires and antennae (much more fragile than wire, so I'd reserve it for display models, only, unless glued solidly against a surface). If you make (and bake) a polymer clay mold of a simple, shallow bit, you can try your hand at squash casting (melt end of sprue, push into mold, hold still until cool, then clip off your part and slice/file/sand the back flush - I've successfully reproduced a simple ork glyph plate this way, but consider it less practical than using epoxy putty in a similar mold). If you melt a bunch of sprue in liquid polystyrene cement, you can use the goop as a gap filler on plastic kits (overfill, then file/sand flush for a smooth finish - it ends up as plain styrene, just like the adjoining surfaces, so everything abrades evenly leaving a seamless finish).

The list could go on, but I think you get the idea. As potentially useful as it is, it's not like there aren't better alternatives for most of these tasks, many of which aren't particularly expensive and most of which require less effort achieve equivalent quality. I think it's definitely worth keeping some old sprues around, but don't inundate yourself. Personally, I keep a small tupperware for ground sprue rubble, one long compartment in my bits box for girders/strips, and one small-ish box (sprue-sized footprint, a few inches tall) of full (empty) sprues for odd-shaped pieces and/or breaking down later. When I empty a new sprue, these containers get topped off, if there's room, and I get rid of the rest. Even doing that, I always have more than I need and I've barely been building new kits as I work on painting through my backlog. Avid scratchbuilders might burn through their stockpiles faster, but most also build more kits than I have, lately.

A simple example by just google searching "model sprues made into bases"


I've also seen ones where they've been cut and placed in such a way it resembles a cobblestone road, then greenstuffed over to look like asphalt on top. It looked pretty cool.

Ive used them for the inner skeliton of a reaver titan then did the detail with stiff card its light and strong.

Those rubble looks awesome.

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page350.html

Go nuts

I used to have a lovely nurgle-possessed predator, near falling apart, and used sprues for a sort of reinforced armour/cage effect. No photos sadly, it was 10 years ago.

Also possible to make very good tank traps from them in this style:

http://www.bgstoysoldiers.com/servlet/the-3121/Tank-Traps-JG-Miniatures/Detail

I keep them for sprue stretching. Mostly I use the stretched sprue for rigging battleships and making scale cables, but they might be used to make some very convincing bow strings.

This video shows how to do it: http://youtu.be/pw0fv6Ot7eQ?t=27s

EDIT: should probably add, watch out for any toxic fumes that might result from melting plastic!

I used clear sprue (from an airplane kit) and used it for spurting blood from an ork head. Just melted and worked it over a flame, then painted with Tamiya clear red and sealed with Future.

Through my own recent sprue questions I found some other good stuff like:

http://battlegroundhobbies.blogspot.com/2012/07/warhammer-40k-terrain-how-to-part-two.html

I've got to start on some terrain today so I'll be doing this, as well as cutting bits up for rubble and ingots as mentioned above.

Sprue crons !



http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/438545.page#4839885


http://www.40kforums.com/vb/showthread.php/28282-Necron-Sprue-Army!

Wow I can't believe someone actually did that They look somewhat okay now but wait til they get painted

There is a whole thread of sprue terrain creations in the Modeling Tutorial section..

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/329231.page